“Uh-oh,” a tiny part of my brain thought on Monday evening, in the dying minutes of El Clásico, as the rest of my brain was engaged in going ‘wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’; “I think I just saw Sergio Ramos push Puyol to the ground… and he’s just slapped away Xavi too… man, the next Spain call-up is going [...]

We haven’t seen Sevilla’s Jesús Navas with La Roja since, in September, playing against PSG, an injury sidelined him and saw him replaced in Del Bosque’s line-up, and now it’s reported we won’t see him in what’s left of this year either.

The owner of the most striking pair of eyes in La Selección will go [...]

As some of you pointed out last night after the match, this isn’t such an impressive result, considering it comes after the 0-4 to Liechtenstein and the 3-1 to Lithuania, not to speak of the recent good results of some others of the possible Euro contenders, like Germany or The Netherlands.
But, and you know I’m [...]

Do you think the RFEF has a script for situations like this? It all looked very familiar last night…
La Roja played well, Lithuania defended with 9 men, La Roja missed a lot of chances, Lithuania were saved by the goalpost, La Roja finally scored, Lithuania scored in a counter, La Roja woke up and put [...]

… and if someone needed at good day at the office, it was Pepe Reina, after his unfortunate mistake in the friendly against Argentina.
But lo and behold, he put that behind him and gave a truly wonderful performance in Liverpool’s otherwise lackluster 0-0 draw against Birmingham this weekend. In case you had forgotten why Mr [...]

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 [...]

Paul was right. Huh. Who’d have trusted an octopus with this?
But he chose Spain and Spain won.

And, by all the octopi in the world, we deserved it!!! I know that victory doesn’t go always to the deserving, that pretty build-ups and incredible amounts of possession don’t always mean anything, but they did this time. Unlike [...]

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!