Victory for the artisans over the artists is integral to World Cup 2010 as it was to previous tournaments Who Killed Bambi? was the title of a film about the Sex Pistols that Malcolm McLaren and Russ Meyer, the soft-porn director, never quite got around to making, but it could have been the headline over reports of Spain’s 1-0 defeat by Switzerland on Wednesday afternoon. Spain were supposed to be the darlings of the tournament. They were the ones, we said, who would provide the 2010 World Cup with its finest exposition of the game’s most cherished arts. Their victory would be a triumph for the forces of righteousness, heralding the dawn of football’s new age of enlightenment. It was when Andrés Iniesta, one of Spain’s squadron of much-admired playmakers, left the field after 76 minutes, shaking his head in dismay, that the title of McLaren and Meyer’s movie came to mind. There was pathos, certainly, in the sight of one of the game’s true artists being utterly cancelled out, along with the rest of his team, by a group of men who, by comparison, are no more than willing artisans. But should we really be sad about this, or should we accept that football is about more than just pretty patterns? Spain’s approach is based on that of Barcelona, who arrived at the Emirates Stadium in March and played 20 minutes of the most exalted, expressive football that those of us fortunate enough to be present are ever likely to see. Their movement and their passing ravished the senses, their mutual understanding and their sheer joy in their work communicating itself even to those who feared their side were about to be on the wrong end of an historic pounding. It didn’t work out that way, because Cesc Fábregas – who had something to prove to Barcelona – came on and dragged Arsenal to a memorable 2-2 draw. But would it have been a more satisfying occasion had Barcelona won 5-0, which looked on the cards with a quarter of the match gone? Watching Spain on Wednesday was a lot like watching Arsenal in the later stages of last season: the players could not understand why their virtuous approach was not giving them the critical mass that would tip the balance of the game. They were doing what they had been schooled to do, and it was not enough to overcome an opposing team whose ambitions were not pitched at the same level of creativity. This has happened before at World Cups, even in the finals. Back in 1954 the tournament was supposed to be ready for Hungary – the Magical Magyars of Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis, Zoltan Czibor, Nandor Hidegkuti and Jozsef Bozsik, who had just beaten England 7-1 in Budapest – to confirm their position as the dominant power in the global game. As they thrashed West Germany 8-3 in their second group match, that outcome seemed a certainty. But Puskas, their figurehead, was injured in that match by a tackle from the defender Werner Liebrich. He did not reappear until the final in Berne, where they met West Germany again and lost 3-2, an equaliser from a half-fit Puskas two minutes from the end being questionably disallowed for offside. That traumatic defeat terminated a four-year, 32-match unbeaten run (Spain went 35 matches without defeat between 2006 and 2009) and heralded the end of Hungary’s golden age. Twenty years later Holland occupied a similar position in the world’s esteem, thanks to the development of Total Football under their coach, Rinus Michels, and the majesty of such players as Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Ruud Krol, Rob Rensenbrink and Wim van Hanegem. The Clockwork Orange reached the final after beating Argentina 4-0 and Brazil 2-0 in the second group stage before losing in the final to West Germany, the hosts, taking the lead in Munich with a second-minute penalty before succumbing to overconfidence and their opponents’ superior grit. Brazil were the romantic heroes of 1982. A team bursting with such ball-playing aristocrats as Zico, Sócrates, Eder, Paulo Roberto Falcão and Toninho Cerezo breezed through their opening matches in Spain but suffered a rude awakening at the hands of Italy, for whom the combination of a Paolo Rossi hat-trick and the stern defending of Gaetano Scirea and Claudio Gentile was enough to bring down the favourites in the second round. The other purists’ favourites that year were France, then building a superlative midfield around Michael Platini, Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana. In the semi-final in Seville, however, the West German goalkeeper, Toni Schumacher, committed the terrible assault on Patrick Battiston that prefaced the Germans’ victory in a penalty shoot-out after extra time finished at 3-3. Two years later, with Luis Fernandez completing the midfield quartet, France would win the European Championship, but in 1986 they would again suffer defeat to West Germany in the semis. All these results were disappointing to a certain type of football fan. But they were not the end of the world – or only to those who imagine a universe in which every game of football is a replay of Eintracht Frankfurt 3 Real Madrid 7, the nonpareil European Cup final of 1960. That isn’t going to happen – and nor should it, because football without its grinding 0-0 and 1-1 draws, without its unpredictable collisions of mind and muscle, of beauty and bruises, would be like music with nothing below middle C. Spain World Cup 2010 Group H World Cup 2010 Richard Williams guardian.co.uk
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The Swiss killed Bambi but Spain’s defeat is not the end of the world | Richard Williams
