More than 1,000 passes for just one shot on goal. That is the sad balance of Spain’s World Cup farewell in the fall against Morocco. The Selection seemed to play to have the ball, but not to win. If the result came, it was welcome. But Spain was content to govern without further ado, whether it scored or not. Precisely, He respected Luis Enrique’s idea more than ever, who prioritizes style over scoring. “He executed it perfectly. We have created enough opportunities to win”, argued the coach after the game. In reality, it was not like that at all. The barely 27 interventions in the rival area in a game that had until extra time reveal that Spain did not intimidate as it should have at an offensive level . In any case, Luis Enrique, put to death, chose to do it his way. Boring, tasteless and painful for looking so little like what Spain once was.
Morocco did not give an inch, stoically came together and tiled their area while Spain dominated possession for nothing. There was no mix in the game between too many horizontal passes and few unmarking without the ball. The analysis of the match leaves a series of data that emerge eloquently. Some with a devastating rotundity. 12.5% of the National Team’s passes were between Rodri and Laporte. From central to central, without shipments that broke lines. The types of movements of the players had a lot to do with it. Most were offers in support (269) or behind the ball (163) and very few were made from inside to outside or from outside to inside (17).
Pedri was unrecognizable, but not unprecedented. The canary epitomizes Spanish nonsense. He was by far the player who offered himself to his teammate the most (139 times) and the one who tried to break the most lines (41 times), even the one who carried out the most direct pressure actions (nine). But nothing came of it, victim of so much talk of the ball in a game in which nobody changed the record. Spain lacked depth and one on one. The bands were barely used. He had no variations in the game because Luis Enrique did not want to have them. Why not slim down the midfield and bring another player closer to Morata? Why not look for more breaks from inside to the baseline, if only to create more space inside and outside? The unhealthy obsession with a pattern of play has led Luis Enrique and the National Team to see themselves in the ditch. The points in common with the elimination in Russia four years earlier confirm that Spain has fallen into complacency of style. He almost always had the ball, but rarely knew what to do with it. Possession for possession’s sake.