The future’s Spanish after Ansu Fati, Gavi & Nico Williams score in World Cup friendly – The Warm-Up

FRIDAY’S BIG STORIES

Here Come Young Spain

You should never read too much into friendlies. Not preseason friendlies, those tempting illusions of happiness to come. And certainly not pre-tournament friendlies, which are basically the same deal but with a much higher incentive not to get involved in anything that looks even vaguely like a tackle.

But what Spain played out yesterday, we reckon that was something else. They beat Jordan 3-1, which isn’t too exciting a scoreline (unless you’re Hamza Al-Dardour, scorer of Jordan’s late consolation, in which case kudos to you). But Spain’s goals came from Ansu Fati, Gavi and Nico Williams. Who have an average age of [counts on fingers] like, 12?

We have no idea if this iteration of the Spain team is going to be good, or good enough. We have concerns about that weird loss to Switzerland, about where the goals are going to come from, about the spaces behind their defence, about the fact that Sergio Busquets is 34 going on 3,034. But you know what we’re not worried about? The next World Cup. And the one after that, and the one after that, and hey, why not, the one after that (Egypt, Zimbabwe, Australia, and a coalition comprising anywhere between three and 10 south-east Asian nations, if you’re wondering).

Gavi is 18. Pedri is 19. Ansu Fati, Yeremy Pino and Nico Williams are all 20, and Ferran Torres a positively ancient 22, with 31 caps and Manchester City already behind him. As ever, the future remains unpredictable, and footballing careers can be unmade as easily as they can be imagined. But if at least three of the names on that list don’t end up with more than 100 caps, then we’ll eat Twitter.

It might be a little early for all that potential energy to coalesce into a convincing bid for this World Cup. But having a squad crammed with terrifying children seems like one possible solution to a World Cup played in eternal sunshine. And whatever happens, it feels quite good to have Spain back where they belong: obviously strong yet definitely flawed; seductive enough to make an innocent mind think ‘oh hey, they might win it’ but brittle enough to flame out early. That period when they were obviously the best? It was weird.

Not Ronaldo News

We’ll level with you. Another day of Ronaldo revelations was just too much for us to bear. We decided to actually watch Portugal play some football.

And didn’t they look fun, without Ronaldo. Didn’t they score four goals, without Ronaldo. Didn’t Joao Felix lead the line elegantly and energetically, without Ronaldo.

Ronaldo was missing last night with a stomach bug, and is expected to make a full recovery in time for the tournament. International football is generally a slower and more considered game than the domestic game, and Fernando Santos is from a very different school of thought to Erik ten Hag, so Ronaldo shouldn’t look quite as out of place as he does for Manchester United. But. But, but, but.

He’s going into this tournament having scored just three goals all season, against FC Sheriff and Everton, he’s not always been playing, his finishing has been wonky when he has been on the pitch, he’s just spent a couple of months merrily dynamiting his standing at a club he says he still loves, and if he knows what happens next, what happens after the tournament, he’s not giving the rest of us any clues. This is either the prelude to the greatest and most defiant tournament performance of his life, or it’s the drum roll before a disaster.

Not to go all Stephen Hawking here, but it becomes clearer every day that of all the possible universes, we live in the banter timeline. And in the banter timeline, the likeliest outcome is that Ronaldo stinks out Portugal’s first game, gets substituted in the second, is dropped for the third, and then watches grumpily as the side look significantly better in his absence. And then United sack him, buy João Félix, and give him the no.7 shirt. Look, we don’t make the rules. This is just basic physics, quarks, things of that nature.

A warning from history. Portugal began Euro 2004 with as much of their old guard as they could get onto the pitch, and got beaten by Greece. Then Luiz Felipe Scolari dropped a pair of legends – Rui Costa and captain Fernando Couto – and brought in some younger players, then took his new-look team all the way to the final. Pepe is 39, and Ronaldo is 37. We’re just saying.

(Yes, they lost to Greece in the final as well, which suggests there was something going on beyond the fact that Couto was getting on a bit. But the point stands.)

IN OTHER NEWS

All we want from this World Cup – along with a victory for Wales and for universal human rights – is a very important penalty to be (a) Panenka’d and then (b) saved. This was not an important penalty, and it wasn’t saved, but clearly the right kind of energy is growing.

RETRO CORNER

It is, in retrospect, hilariously blatant. The ball’s past him! For younger readers, the fallout from this was spectacular. Henry considered retiring from international football, while the Irish FA called for the game to be voided and then, speculatively, to be added to the World Cup as a 33rd team. They were widely mocked for this, which always seemed a little unfair. Worth a shot. Perhaps the most significant outcome was FIFA’s agreement to look into the use of extra assistants and video technology. It was shortly after this that we ended up with the brief, strange appearance of the extra referee standing behind the goal. And now we have VAR. An Arsenal legend flaps his wings…

Presumably France went on to make the most of their World Cup spot, and didn’t do anything embarrassing like: crash out at the group stage, winless, in a furious storm of intra-squad acrimony. Let’s just look it up.

Oh. Oh dear.

HAT TIP

Because, as he says, it was through football that he came to love. “Over the years, it’s helped pull me away from the darker, stultifying side of what it means to ‘be a man’. [From] an early age, football was an emotional faucet for me, as it is for generations of working class men. The joy and pain of football helped me to express myself instead of withdrawing into brooding solitude. These outpourings of emotion aren’t always positive, of course. After intense experiences, things can erupt out of us. But after a game, I often find I can talk about things that I might not otherwise be able to.”

It’s a cracking piece. Read it.

COMING UP

Another handful of friendlies today as the party gets closer: Cameroon vs. Panama, Belgium vs. Egypt, and Bahrain vs. Serbia. But it’s not all internationals. League One is still motoring on, and Derby are off to Portsmouth. Fifth against six. Big game.

Andi Thomas will be here with your first World Cup Warm-Up on Sunday morning.