Unai Simón and a Panenka de Carvajal make Spain champion on penalties

History sometimes changes in the most unlikely way. History, sometimes, changes due to an unpredictability, an oversight, a bad moment or a wrong place. History sometimes changes just because. And the story, sometimes, changes with the Panenka of a substitute right back. Such a thing happened to Spain, with a title in their hands 11 years later. A minor title, but a title, resolved in the agony of penalties with the recklessness, or genius, of Carvajal, who stung it above Livakovic in what was the second decisive shot (the first had crashed into the crossbar Laporte ). [Narration and Stats (0-0, 5-4)]

Spain defeated Croatia, that irreducible, tireless, marvelous team that always plays overtime whenever possible and that you always have to beat not once, but half a dozen times. Honors for a team, the Croatian, touching in the exaltation of its fighting character, but greater honors for the champion, which is Spain in this insipid period of its history, without footballers to cling to and assuming, perhaps, that the The height of the Nations is, today, that of this team. Not one gram of joy should detract from that, since one is only obliged to win when he is in a position to do so.. The height of a World Cup or a Euro Cup is too much for this Spain, so nothing can be demanded there. Unless history is capable of being changed by a substitute right-back Panenka. Worst things have been seen.

That first final of the League of Nations that Spain played had nothing to do with yesterday's. The one in France, at San Siro, 2021, and the one in Croatia, at The Kuip, 2023, were completely different things. With Luis Enrique, the selection was a robot. Regardless of the rival and the day of the week, the lows or the highs, even whether it was sunny or raining, Spain went out onto the field, planted its 4-3-3, caught the ball and had it all the time.. Almost always horizontally, but I had it. With improper sweating when the rival, normally inferior, locked him up, but he had it. With brilliant nights, few, but I had it (that one in Milan was one of those, far superior to France). No one disputed Spain's possession in five years, and neither did that day.

Spain wins the League of Nations and madness breaks out among the players and fans Promise kept

This Spain of Luis De la Fuente, Croatia was discussed. The team was without her half the time, and that, the assumption that sometimes the ball belongs to others, is one of the unequivocal signs of the cycle change. It already happened, to a lesser extent, with Italy in the semifinals. Yesterday it was even more obvious.

Spain assumes today that you have to attack with the ball and defend without it, depending on how the game comes. De la Fuente promised variants and has delivered. He also promised, this time to himself, not to repeat mistakes and, far from the eight changes he made in Glasgow compared to Norway's match in March, yesterday he barely touched two pieces from the headlines against Italy. He put Fabián in, I ended up looking for more power and lungs against the tremendous Croatian midfield, and Asensio, forced after how bad Rodrigo Moreno was. The first part led to a tense fight, with both of them very afraid of making mistakes because, agreed, the tournament does not have much of a pedigree, but it was still a final where Croatia won in the stands (almost 30,000) and where they tied the teams on the field.

Dalic didn't move much either, just a central defender, because Croatia has what it has, which isn't much, but it's very good.. The midfield, with Kovacic and Brozovic moving much more than Modric, and with him, with Modric, playing much more than the other two, commands a lot of respect. So the night turned into a constant skirmish in that area of the field, with very few options.. For Croatia, the best was one from Kramaric, whose one-on-one with Unai was acrobatically avoided by Laporte. For Spain, a shot after a steal from Gavi on the front and a center kick from Fabián that Livakovic narrowly missed his own goal.

lying white flag

Little changed in the second part. As the night progressed and a light rain began to fall on Rotterdam, Spain was tilting the field towards Livakovic, taking advantage of the fact that Croatia was running out of air. Not the heart, because the last play of the 90 minutes was a corner in favor, but the air. He was not able to create any danger, and he saw how Spain had, in the last 10 minutes, two quite clear chances, one by Ansu Fati culminating the team's best collective play (the ball was kicked out by Perisic when it was a goal) and another by Asensio, who crossed too much. Croatia came to extra time with the white flag, that somewhat lying white flag, because this team would never take it out to surrender, but to deceive the opponent.

However, the inertia was clear, and in extra time, despite the fact that the Croats played the eighth of the 10 to which they aspired in the last three major tournaments, they were for little.. The chances continued to be Spanish, generated above all by an acceptable version of Ansu Fati and Asensio, the most talented.