Spain have the shapes, patterns and craft but their one weakness cost them

The Guardian

16 hours ago

Aitana Bonmatí could not even manage a smile. The walk to the podium through an England guard of honour that, while generous in its applause, could still barely hold in its euphoria must have felt several miles long. She had just been named player of the tournament and it was just about possible to detect a bowing of the head as the award was announced. There were photos to pose for after taking receipt of the trophy and after what had just passed there was simply no point in putting on an act.
In those moments before Bonmatí shuffled up for her prize, Spain's players stood motionless, wordless, in the penalty area that had eventually sealed their fate. How had it come to this? It had been billed as the rubber-stamping of a golden generation; the night when the world's best team would follow success by reeling off more of the same. Everyone knew that Spain routinely performed at a level several notches higher than the rest. There was nothing to do beyond fold the arms and stare blankly.
Maybe there had been something in the Basel water. Earlier in the day, at a Uefa-run forum exploring a range of angles around the women's game, predictions for the final were sought from several of the speakers and none of them went for the bleeding obvious. England would win, Jill Ellis and Camille Abily claimed. There was no persuading Emma Hayes to commit in either direction. At the time it felt like wishful thinking; a conscious effort to suggest jeopardy where little appeared. But perhaps the experts really did know something, because every chink of weakness Spain have showed this summer ultimately cost them here.
In the end their cutting edge deserted them when it mattered most, and for those looking closely enough the signs had been there. It had required a piece of Bonmatí magic to see off Germany, who in turn exposed them down the flanks on numerous occasions, in their semi-final after several chances were spurned. The taps had certainly begun to trickle after a flow of 16 goals in their opening four games.
Against England, too, they could have won several times over. By the second period of extra time the Lionesses could, in large part, barely run after being put through a third 120-minute effort in 10 days. Meanwhile Ona Batlle, perhaps the best player on the pitch, was making her latest underlapping run to the byline from right-back and watching her cross rebound out for another corner. Spain had the shapes, the patterns, the running power and the craft, but none of the certainty that imbues serial winners.
They will surely rue not adding to Mariona Caldentey's opening goal, thundered in after characteristically prodigious work from Batlle, in the utterly dominant half-hour that followed. Spain had worked England at will during that spell, Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas pulling every string, but never quite created the sure thing that would see them home. They soon learned it was too early to kill the game through possession and Alessio Russo's equaliser suggested a team taking things a touch too easily.
Spain had been their tenacious selves off the ball for most of the night, Patri Guijarro leaving Georgia Stanway in an early heap to demonstrate guts should not be enough for England this time. But their lack of pressure was conspicuous when a simple move through the thirds, its angles hardly dizzying, ended with a Chloe Kelly's perfect cross and it was a moment of inattention that proved critical.
There will also be regret that Esther González, another rueful award winner when she received the golden boot, did not score after the group stage. She had early glimpses, while the substitutes Clàudia Pina and Salma Paralluelo had their own openings much later, but England's blend of doggedness and weary, gnarled self-assurance was a barrier too far.
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The parallels with Arsenal's Champions League final win against Barcelona will, given the personnel on show, come freely. Both times the overwhelming favourites were sucker-punched by teams who had earned their moment, formed more than the sum of their parts and prodded at the soft spots. But it would be remiss to see a wider pattern here; wrong to talk of failure or of a system short of everything it is cracked up to be.
A perverse joy of a team this gifted is the contortions it inspires in others; the ends and compromises foes reach in order to scramble close to their plane. England had to make plenty of those and, as Montse Tomé and Sarina Wiegman embraced at the end, the thought occurred that Spain's most formidable adversary had been stalking the technical area.
Spain will be back and so will Bonmatí, whose missed penalty was a key moment in another wobbly shootout. Incomprehensible moments such as that, anomalies so rare that their significance feels grossly unjust, cannot tar a legacy that has only been strengthened by her remarkable response to viral meningitis. Bonmatí teased the heartstrings further by asking for forgiveness on Spanish television; Spain may have been reined in but apologies are entirely unnecessary.