Spanish newspapers have launched a harsh attack on the national coach, Luis Enrique, and his players, after the exit from the round of 16 of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, at the hands of the Moroccan national team on penalties (3-0) after the end of the match in regular and extra time on the result of a draw (0-0).
Before facing the two teams, the hopes of the Spanish football community were high in coach Luis Enrique and his young squad who reached the semi-finals of the 2021 European Championship and the final of the European Nations League for the same year, and the good start of peers of the promising star, Gavi, the world’s best young player for the year 2022, sweeping Costa Rica 7-0 in the opening Group E competitions, prompted the Spaniards to be optimistic about achieving remarkable results in Qatar.
However, the side that were crowned world champions in 2010 and Euro 2012 came away with a lackluster draw with Germany (1-1), before the Roja players’ self-confidence was shaken after defeat by Japan (2-1), which put them out of the tournament for a few minutes in the last round of the group stage.
Many believed Spain was content to lose to Japan to avoid a possible quarter-final match-up with Brazil, but paid the price against Morocco after a mediocre performance and squandered all their penalties against goalkeeper Yassine Bounou.
Humble Spain
And the newspaper “Marca” headlined, “Spain failed to humiliate”, and added analyzing the match: “Luis Enrique also frustrated his team. The whole campaign was disappointing, except the Costa Rica match. The team it was in free fall until it collapsed completely in front of Morocco”.
The newspaper expressed its mockery of Enrique regarding his statements before facing Morocco, when he claimed that “each player trained to take 1,000 penalty kicks in anticipation of the game ending in a draw and moving on to penalty”, but his side failed to score any penalties, as Bono saved two kicks from Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets, while Pablo Sarabia hit the post before them.
And Marca continued sarcastically: “The team had to train on 26,000 penalties, as Luis Enrique said.”
In its assessment of the players’ performances, the newspaper said: “There is no player in the team capable of making a difference.”
Enrique’s fate is in doubt
As for the “SPORT” newspaper, one of its articles headlined “Spain starts with a big zero”, and continued: “Spain is drowned… the team of a thousand passes and a thousand penalties”.
The newspaper “AS” (AS), for its part, expressed the general sentiment in football circles in Spain, in its headline, saying: “What a painful World Cup”, while the journalist Thomas Roncero indicated that Spain exited soon from the World Cup, as happened in Russia 4 years ago for the same reasons, adding: “Enrique possessed the ball without danger. Morocco felt comfortable with this method. They needed to take risks and make individual decisions more daring and play vertically, not just horizontally. Passion for ball control cannot be satisfied.”
He continued: “Exit from the round of 16 is a failure and the matter cannot be mitigated. Luis Enrique will leave and we don’t know the fate of the national team.”
Interestingly, Luis Enrique confirmed in the press conference after the defeat that he feels completely satisfied with the La Roja national team, while his future has not yet been decided, and indicated that he will meet with the president of the Spanish Federation, Luis Rubiales, next week to discuss it.
