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There are two ways to play football - with your fast legs or your fast brain. When you use the latter to play, you are bound to be emotional because it is sheer passion that is driving you.
READ MOREThe most aggressive and emotional player on the field - that’s what they say about me, and I quite agree to it. From a guy who loved Volleyball till college to a guy who dreams about scoring bicycle goals, life has certainly been a ball game.
There are two ways to play football - with your fast legs or your fast brain. When you use the latter to play, you are bound to be emotional because it is sheer passion that is driving you. I guess it is a little wonder why I am a huge Buffon fan.
I love football and I like to keep it with me all the time (I even keep my football boots next to my bed), and no other team does this better than the Catalan Giants. Like they say, it’s more than football in Spain, it is something more.
Spanish footballers respect the ball more than any other country in the world I feel. They love keeping possession of the football, keeping the ball close to their feet, like a mother keeping her child close to her heart.
However, this world cup in Spain is not just about proving what happened last year was a one-off moment, but also bids farewell to one of the greatest artists of the beautiful game, Don Andres.
More often, that man looks for a teammate even when the net is free but when he does decide to score, boy, oh boy, isn’t it breathtaking?!
The last minute peach against Chelsea, the thunderbolt against Real Madrid and of course, the greatest goal ever scored in the history of Spain.
He reached the World Cup struggling with injury, running around hotel corridors in the middle of the night, unseen by team-mates, trying to prove his fitness to himself. It says something that Del Bosque said “Ï would wait for him, as long as it took.”
He played, the way only Iniesta could, the way that became symbolic of a generation: arguably the best that football in Spain along with Xavi, maybe anywhere, has seen. “An era departs with him,” said a report. “A style, too. A way of playing and a way of life.” After Rome, Alex Ferguson talked about how “he and Xavi get you on that carousel” and he experienced that again at Wembley in 2011.
In South Africa, he scored the winning goal, 116 minutes into the final, peeling off his shirt to reveal a vest underneath. “Dani Jarque, always with us,” it said, written by the physio Hugo before kick-off for Iniesta in honour of the Espanyol captain, his friend, who had passed away after a sudden unexpected heart attack. Jarque’s wife Jessica watched the match on TV, her first in a year since his death. “Seconds before the goal, I knew it was coming. I started to cry before you scored,” she told Iniesta. As the ball sat up, he said he heard “the silence”.
Spain have never believed in fast counter attacks or crosses into the 6-yard box. Their game is poised, even when they have one defender in front of them, they believe in total football, total control of the game.
Now, let’s do a little list. Iniesta, Isco, Sergio Ramos, De Gea, David Silva, Pique, Jordi Alba, Asensio, Azpilicueta, Busquets,Diego Costa… isn’t going to be little this is it. Okay, Spain, we get it, you’re amazing
With a sprinkling of up-and-coming talent at full back in Isco and Asensio, and the ever-reliable Sergio Ramos as their Capitano.
Are we going to see Iniesta take off his jersey once again?
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