Italy's Mario Balotelli, left, and Spain's Sergio Ramos challenge for the ball during their Group C Euro 2012 match in Gdansk, Poland on Sunday. The teams played to a 1-1 draw
GDANSK, POLAND—Great current football teams are compared to great former football teams.
Only this generation of Spanish players is routinely compared to artists.
However, they have matured out of their championship-winning Picasso-era and are entering a Joan Miro squiggly-lines period — producing the sort of art that makes people nod, smile uncertainly and then turn to a friend and say, “I don’t get it.”
The unparalleled talent is still there. It’s there in the pre-game, when the Spanish subs gather around to play the kids’ game of rondo — monkey in the middle — effortlessly keeping the ball up in the air with backheels and featherlight headers. One of the best at it is Fernando Torres. It’s huge fun to watch. At this age and this level, it’s also pointless.
FULL EURO 2012 COVERAGEDown at the other end, all of the Italians are running sprints and drills. One assumes they can juggle. There’s no need to show people they can.
This is the difference between process and outcomes. Spain is just starting to find out that bringing passion to one doesn’t equal success in the other.
They are no longer the consensus world’s greatest team, but rather its greatest footballing artists’ collective, each man working to a similar style and to his own purpose.
The results were on display up here in the corner of Poland, where Spain had to come from behind to tie Italy 1-1 in the first game of what’s being called ‘The Group of Debt’. Somewhere, Croatia is going, ‘Man, we’re not even in the EU’.
Given Italy’s recent form and the fact that Spain are defending world and European champions, that draw played like a loss. Every time Spain sits back and dithers, they give future opponents new clues and new hope. For the last four years, Spain thrived on fear. No one should be afraid of them anymore.
Their increasing tendency is to continue playing rondo all game long. They advance slowly up the field, passing in a dizzying pattern of triangles. Who’s being dizzied is becoming unclear. Eventually, they hit a defensive wall, regather and do it again. It’s Tetris for humans. This is Total Football having reached it’s reductio ab absurdum, where the ball is moved so beautifully it would be an esthetic sin to interrupt the flow by kicking it into the back of the net.
Spain cemented the impression that they don’t quite get it anymore when they chose to start only midfielders in forward positions. If you could inject something into this team, it would be a streak of selfishness. None of those creative players want to shoot the ball. They want to hold it forever. They are — in the childish sense of this word — playing the game.
When they finally brought in noted juggler and future clinical study in the emasculating effects of moving to London, Fernando Torres, that same infectious need to hang on to the ball gripped the new striker. Torres was sent in alone and tried to dribble around Italian ‘keeper Gianluigi Buffon. Instead, Buffon walked up, stripped him of the ball and danced away. Forwards are not supposed to lose balls in possession to goalkeepers on any stage, let alone this one.
The Italian team arrived here bereft of confidence themselves. Many of the seats in their supporters’ section were empty for much of the first half, as if some of their fans couldn’t bear to watch, even with tickets in hand.
They will leave feeling renewed. Their display mirrored to Spain some of the philosophical changes they must now make on the fly.
The Italian team is constructed to chew opponents into particulate matter. They field a defence, more defence in midfield, one creative string-puller in ageless Andrea Pirlo and a pair of cutting, vertical-minded specialists up front.
Everyone has a purpose. Some purposes are more glamorous than others. No one is playing for fun, either their own or their supporters. Winning is fun. Everything else is playing.
Comparing the two sides, one is reminded of the pronouncement of Italy’s eminence grise and current Ireland manager, Giovanni Trapattoni, on the moral turpitude of trying to entertain when results are required.
“If people want to see a show, they should go to La Scala.”
For many years, the Spanish national team was treated with apathy by nationally splintered home fans. Despite the country’s financial problems, Spaniards travelled here Sunday in great numbers, well outnumbering their Italian counterparts.
The Spanish team may believe they come to see the football. No, they come to lord the trophies over everyone else. If Spain wants to continue to be loved, they must find the courage to play in a more unlovable way.
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