Spain will board their flight to Chattanooga on Friday morning with a squad that looks radically different to the one that shuffled around Estadio Ria...
Spain will board their flight to Chattanooga on Friday morning with a squad that looks radically different to the one that shuffled around Estadio Riazor on a damp Galician evening. The final warm up before the World Cup ended in a 1. 1 stalemate against Iraq, a result that on paper screams alarm but in reality raises barely an eyebrow. Seven of the eight debutants who started this game will not be on the plane. Neither will a certain victory. Which, let's be honest, sounds grim. And truth be told, the performance was grim too, a disjointed 90 minutes saved from complete obscurity only by a 22 minute cameo from Mikel Merino that reminded everyone what real quality looks like.Luis de la Fuente has earned the right to experiment, and this was perhaps the most extreme example of that privilege. The side that took the pitch was barely recognisable. It was a collection of hopefuls and fringe men, a B team in all but name, tasked with finding rhythm against an organised Iraq outfit that had no intention of playing the role of obliging sparring partner. Spain dominated the ball, as they always do, but the final third was a wasteland. There was no incision, no clever movement off the ball, and crucially, no clinical edge. It looked like a team that had met each other in the hotel lobby an hour before kick off.Then came the sucker punch. Iraq, who had spent most of the evening camped in a disciplined low block, sprung their trap. A moment of genuine individual brilliance from Doski, a strike that screamed into the top corner with such venom that even the home crowd had to applaud. It was a stunner, pure and simple. A goal that came from nothing and changed everything. Suddenly Spain's polite possession football looked fragile. The hierarchy had been inverted; the underdogs had drawn first blood, and they did so with style. For a brief, uncomfortable spell, the crowd at Riazor wondered if this fringe experiment was about to backfire spectacularly.Spain did eventually level things up, salvaging some dignity, but the performance never truly clicked. This was not a side with tactical flexibility or sharp transitional play; it was a side going through the motions, waiting for the real business to begin. And in a way, that is the point. This was a send off for the reserves, a chance to give minutes to those who will be watching from their sofas in a few weeks. De la Fuente knows his strongest eleven. The issue now is whether the players who did board that plane can shake off the memory of a flat performance and hit the ground running in the heat of tournament football. For now though, the only thing that matters is that Doski's name will be remembered, and Spain's real World Cup starts in America.
