“It’s all about rondos. Rondo, rondo, rondo. Every. Single. Day,” Xavi Hernández once said, but nobody expected it inside the opposition’s penalty area. And yet here was Spain’s new generation, European champions like his, doing exactly what he demanded – “Pum-pum-pum-pum, always one touch” – just a few metres from Ugurcan Cakir’s goal. Which, when the whole perfect sequence finally played out in Konya, Turkey, is where the ball concluded its journey.
The question now is where they will conclude their own. Can they, like Xavi’s generation, the most successful in history, follow the European Championship with a World Cup? Watching them play on Sunday night, nine months before the tournament’s opening at the Azteca stadium, the answer can only be yes. Watching the second of the six goals they scored, especially.
