Netherlands 5-1 Spain: Spanish crown slipping as Dutch dominate

It was the score that resonated around the world. As the World and European Champions left the Arena Fonte Nova pitch on Saturday evening with 5-1 still looming large on the scoreboard, it required more than a double take to notice that it was not the Netherlands, but Spain who had been handed the five goal thrashing.

There had been some murmurings about the “end of an era” prior to Spain taking the pitch – the age of key figures Xavi and Xabi Alonso combined with the fact that repeating a World Cup is rare at best and near impossible at worst. But the manner in which La Roja have seemingly fallen was as shocking as the score itself.

Those murmurs will ring loud now, as questions will be as difficult to deal with as the Oranje were last night. How was a team that two years ago exited Euro 2012 after losing every game able to cut through Spain like this? Robben was just as fast in 2010, yet it seemed like Spain had forgotten how to run.

Vicente Del Bosque will be under pressure to make wholesale changes – Iker Casillas, Spain captain and symbol of the Iberian’s world domination over the last six years was at times a shell of him as several costly mistakes helped ramp up the embarrassment. Two years after imploring referee Pedro Proenca to stop the Euro 2012 final against Italy as Spain led 4-1 against the 10 man Azzurri, the Madrid goalkeeper was perhaps wishing someone would do the same for him.

It’s unlikely that Del Bosque will consider changing what has been so successful in the past, but philosophical ponderings are now turning into tactical demands from supporters believing that Spain’s defeat is another example that the passing game is representative of a previous generation.

It can be argued that it was a freak result, a debate that historical evidence would certainly back up. After Stefan De Vrij gave the Dutch a 3-1 lead Spain seemed to mentally check out of the game, one where they were apathetic and lackadaisical defensively to begin with. Following the third, the game seemed to take on an almost schoolyard quality where the fastest child outruns a seething mass of his peers. In last night’s game, that child was Arjen Robben.

Spain will go into the two remaining group games mentally rattled following the defeat, but focused on proving the now growing choir of doubters wrong. They faced similar questions following a defeat to Switzerland in 2010 before going on to win the World Cup, but even the most ardent Spaniard will agree this is somewhat different.

The Dutch’s ability to punish Spain’s highline and poor defensive positioning is a method that Brazil utilised to perfection in the 2013 Confederations Cup win and is also what Jupp Heynckes Bayern Munich did to Barcelona in the semi-finals of the 2012/13 Champions League. Real Madrid’s rout of Pep Guardiola’s pass-happy Munich side in the season just past is perhaps another example.

It appears that there is a developing blueprint in how to deal with sides that adopt the “Spanish approach”, which is surfacing against the innovators that kick-started the modern possession revolution in the first place. Whether Spain, like their rivals, can prove to be assertive with a “Plan B” could be what defines their success now and in the future.

Perhaps the most worrying thing from a Spanish perspective is in the space of 90 minutes the question of "will Spain retain the World Cup" is now "can they retain the World Cup." Football tacticians have questioned their approach, but never their ability. The ease in which Louie Van Gaal's side were able to cut through an awful Spanish defence was astonishing and those questions of about the legitimacy of their World Cup bid only grow louder as Spain risk failing to make it out of their group.

The crown is still atop of Spain following their Dutch disaster. But it is slipping.

A letter to Pippo Inzaghi

Dear Pippo,

We have never met, and chances are we never will. You don’t speak my language, nor I yours. But your profession, as far removed as it is from mine, changed my life. You reminded me of romance. Don’t worry; I’m not talking about rose-petals on the bed sort of romance.

I’m talking of romance in football. Some say there isn't any, or at least, not any more. Footballers like you live glamorous lives where their existence and ours seem so far apart it’s almost like they’re on different planets. There’s no connection between the two parties any-more.

However, I think there is romance in football. The romance in football is that of an imaginative child who grows up idolising his favourite players, dreaming of wearing the sacred colours of his club and kicking a ball alone in his back garden, wheeling away, pulling the shirt over his eyes and imagining scoring that goal, in that final.

As the boy becomes a man, he still visits the stadium, cheering every win, remonstrating at every loss – and the brief moments of unbridled joy as his heroes score a goal, the man that he is reverts back to that little boy in the garden, even if just for a moment. That romance made me a fan of A.C Milan, the club you once played for.

Like many an English football fan – I watched Channel Four’s TV show Football Italia that covered “Calcio” as it’s known in Italy, and revelled in the sights of players like Marco Van Basten, Paolo Maldini and Roberto Baggio. 

As a young boy, these were my first forays into European football as a whole – falling for the colour, the fans and the sheer exoticness of central Europe. It was so different to England, still lost in rigid tactics, cold weather and horrible Manchester United-supporting schoolchildren.

I always loved A.C Milan thanks to their bold colours, always remembering how enraptured I was as a child by their cooler-than-cool red and black stripes, the nickname “Diavolo”, meaning ‘devil’ in Italian struck a chord with my young self too. I was an admirer, but not yet a supporter.

As your Milan side progressed in the Champions League (your favourite competition, if I remember rightly) and challenged for European honours during the 2000’s, I began to take a further interest. I was silently pleased if I saw Milan beat a big English side, my sporting guilty pleasure the reason behind the frustration and misery of my Manchester United and Liverpool supporting peers.

I hate bringing this one up, least of all to you – but my love for Milan truly began with that 2005 Champions League final, as I watched your beloved team lose after taking a 3-0 lead. Of course, as you remember – you weren't in the squad that game, and watched from the stands.

 Signed from Juventus, you perhaps connected more with fans than any footballer I have ever seen in my short existence as a fan. I'm sure you would be the first to admit that you weren’t blessed with technique most of your fellow professionals take for granted, your ascendancy came through hard work, attention to detail and your innate ability to read the game.

As a result, I've always thought you have a level of humility I don’t see from many other footballers. You are loyal, passionate and you celebrate every goal like a fan, with the fans.

You watched from the stands as Liverpool fought back and defeated your side, unable to do anything for a team that I know you considered yours as much as any other. You cheered like a fan, cursed like a fan and went home having not played a minute of football – just like a fan.

Two years later, fate would have it that Milan and Liverpool met again. After once again doing internal, joyous dances as you ousted Manchester United in style, the world prepared for Milan to face Liverpool once again. This time, you started.

Milan took the lead thanks to a deflected goal that hit your rib, but it is the second, crucial goal that holds sentimental value to me, and is the reason for this letter.

In the 82^nd minute, Ricky Kaka (I've probably got a letter for him too somewhere) received the ball about 25 yards from goal. Making eye contact with the Brazilian, you made a run that left the Liverpool defence standing. You took a touch, neatly rounded the onrushing keeper and rolled the ball into the empty net. You sprint off toward the corner flag, celebrating before ball even crosses the line. Reaching the by-line near the fourth official, you drop to your knees, screaming as you did so, frantically gesticulating.

For that moment as I watched, overjoyed at what I had witnessed, I saw you revert to the little boy in the back garden, wheeling away and celebrating alone. For those few seconds, I connected with you because there was a feeling that you and I were very alike. I, like you had dreamed of scoring a vital goal in Cup Final for club I loved. I, like you - wheeled away and exalted with passion, without shame or doubt. I, like you – was just a fan. 

Since then, I became hooked. I am a passionate fan of a football team that speaks a different language, plays in a different country and has no cultural connection to me at all, and I'm proud of that. In a way it feels more satisfying, because I feel my sporting preferences have not come about through circumstantial geography that I can’t affect, but an emotional epiphany that I feel I chose and simultaneously chose me.

Now, as fate would have it, it appears our shared bond with AC Milan will once again resurface. Once again you watched, I'm assuming with sadness, as the once great club you played for stagnated. Once again someone else was chosen to fix that problem, while you hoped for the best. Once again, you have the opportunity the second time around to help. 

Once again it is your image that is tied to the vision of that club, as your every decision as a coach impacts on my mood and emotions in the same way that your movements on the pitch once did. It appears Pippo, we have come full circle.

I can only hope that in this next phase of both my fandom and your career, you can deliver a fraction of the joy you brought on that May evening in 2007.  I have you to thank for all of this, yet I probably will never get to explain to you in person about how you changed my life, and helped me pick a side that has become part of my identity that to this day you are a huge part of. 

But I guess, that’s the point.

Grazie, e buona fortuna. 

Sam