After a string of awful friendlies that saw our position at the top of the the FIFA ranking slip to second place, and with the rocky divorce between Real Madrid and Barça players over the latest Clásicos to make things even more difficult, the friendly against Chile looked like a pretty good test of character.

Which [...]

One piece of good news, one piece of bad news…
The bad first: Paul the Octopus has died. The psychic cephalopod to whom many think that Spain owes some of its World Cup success passed into the great ocean in the sky at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium last night, while he slept and dreamt of [...]

Who are we trying to kid, every loss hurts. Particularly since it’s been a couple of years since Spain lost in a friendly, and the only recent defeats for La Roja were against the USA at the Confed Cup, and against Switzerland on our way to the World Cup.
So yeah, losing against Argentina wasn’t fun.

But [...]

Remember the cursed ‘Write the Future’ Nike ad? The one in which Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Ribèry, Cannavaro and so many others had flattering close-ups and epic slow-mos just before they crashed out of the World Cup? The one in which Piqué, Cesc and Iniesta appeared as frustrated losers for exactly one millisecond?
Nike is [...]

After the euphoria of victory comes the ecstasy of celebration… which, in Spain’s case, means getting drunk and clowning around in planes, buses, and a stage especially designed for the purpose of showing your drunk antics to a screaming crowd (also, putting your foot in your mouth).
So, come in and enjoy a few carefully selected [...]

It still feels like a dream… walking to work early on Monday morning, stopping at each newsstand on the way to look at the newspapers and grin like a fool.
Spain, World Cup Champions.
SPAIN, WORLD CUP CHAMPIONS!

¡Campeones, oé!
Finally, finally, we’ve conquered not only the ‘Quarterfinal Curse’, but the World Cup itself. We’ve showed the world where [...]

Euphoria was last night’s game, and going to sleep with the beeping of car horns, fireworks and drunken voices singing “¡Illa, illa, illa, Villa maravilla!”.

Waking up this morning was running immediately to the papers to check that it was true, that Spain really were in the semi-finals, and finding a headline that Cristiano Ronaldo is [...]

The review, replays, grading, opinions and coherent thoughts will come later…
… now, it’s time to celebrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the first time in their history, Spain makes it into the semifinals of a World Cup!
Spain, the team everyone was writing off after the match with Switzerland. Spain, the eternal underperformers. *Our* Spain.

¡VIVA ESPAÑA!

Because if anyone saw the game last night and said, ‘wow, these guys look like serious favourites to win the World Cup’ then, please, they need to go to see their eye-doctor urgently.
I am very, very happy we won, even if my neighbours tortured me all night with wailing car-horns and fireworks, but I am… [...]

There, there. We won. We’re still alive in the competition. In fact, we’re second in our group. We’re not favourites anymore, no one was dazzled by our game, and things have returned to normal. As you were.
It was a good match. Not a brilliant match, not the goleada that it could have been, but it [...]