"I couldn't care less about the result,” Luis Enrique had said in the build-up to Spain’s latest bid to get past the World Cup’s first knockout round. He will care about this one, a magnificent Morocco instead earning the best in their history and a first-ever quarter-final place with it.
It came in a penalty shootout, just as it did against Russia four years ago at the same stage, Enrique’s homework assignment to “take 1,000 penalties” before this tournament a year ago evidently not undertaken.
