In some way, Spain’s path to the round of 16 of the Euro Cup began in the same place as that of Georgia, its rival tonight (9:00 p.m., La1) for a place in the quarterfinals where Germany awaits. These are two teams that seem to come from the furthest ends of European football – the one that has most seduced in Germany and the one that appears with the worst FIFA ranking, debutant in the tournament – and that nevertheless come from the same transformative moment : September last year, in Tbilisi. Although they couldn’t come out of there with more different faces.
The 1-7 in the qualifying phase triggered the Reds and shook Georgia: “I don’t remember that match,” their coach, the Frenchman Willy Sagnol, joked yesterday. “It was a hard moment. He hurt us. But if we are here in part it is because of what we learned that night, which was a lot.”
Spain is also at this point, especially in terms of play, due to what happened on that trip to Tbilisi, the founding point of this team both in the character of the group and in terms of football. They landed in the ex-Soviet republic still with the echoes of the applause for Luis Rubiales on the day of “I am not going to resign.” And without boots for the footballers. What other symptoms would be needed to diagnose a complete collapse? However, circumstances had an unexpected effect on those kids who were frolicking in sneakers the night before the game. “There we began to coin the term ‘family’,” Luis de la Fuente recalled yesterday. “They were very exciting moments that we had to live, and from there we came out much stronger.”
The next day, with the boots sent from Las Rozas on a private flight, they scrapped Georgia with weapons that can also locate their birthplace there. Before the break, Dani Olmo and Marco Asensio were injured, and in their place came Nico Williams and the debutant Lamine Yamal, who were deployed together for the first time, who scored, and who above all showed the next evolution of La Roja’s football, the extremes that today hypnotize Europe.
In the round of 16, the paths of Spain and Georgia cross again, only to separate once again definitively. A team that has not conceded a goal, against Mikautadze, who celebrated in the first three games. “For me, we have already won the European Championship,” said Sagnol, who nevertheless refuses to rule out a surprise. For La Roja, however, it is the first step towards the final in Berlin on July 14. “A different Euro Cup begins,” said De la Fuente.
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