Gavi became Spain’s youngest World Cup goalscorer in their 7-0 demolition of Costa Rica, with Ferran Torres the only player to score twice
There was still time for Álvaro Morata to add another two minutes later, Spain’s No 7 getting Spain’s seventh.by Raphael, a gay icon back home, boomed round the place. It had been a great night, that is for sure, Luis Enrique left laughing, his team having presented their candidacy. Spain played more than a thousand passes and, if the old question used to run “yeah but how many mattered?”, the new answer looks like it could well be: all of them. Pointless? Not a bit of it.
“We were superb in every aspect of the game and I like the fact we dominated from the first whistle,” Luis Enrique said. “It was very special; everything went well.” From Costa Rica’s point of view, it might be equally difficult to remember one as calamitous, an aged side mercilessly taken to pieces by kids. For Luis Fernando Suárez’s team it began badly, never got better and could get worse. “Psychologically I’m really worried we won’t be able to recover from this,” he said.Suárez had anticipated that Spain would have more of the possession, but not like this. By the end, they just wanted it to stop, but Spain refused.
The wide positions, occupied by Olmo and Ferran Torres, were very wide, the pitch much too big for Costa Rica to ever get anywhere on time. Asensio was the false 9, mobile and always available. And perhaps you could call Rodri a false 4, the Manchester City midfielder employed at centre-back but in those parts of the pitch usually occupied by the pivot. “The centre‑backs will touch the ball more than 100 times,” Luis Enrique’s assistant, Fernando Torres, said. Rodri had 91 of those by half-time alone.
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