“I look behind me and I see Mikel Merino and I think: ‘I’m calm as can be,’” Luis de la Fuente said when at last the heart rates had returned to normal. Everyone else’s heart rates, anyway. In those moments when time is running out and the tension is running high, there’s something about Spain’s coach. And there’s certainly something about the midfielder.
On the afternoon before Spain faced Belgium in their quarter-final, De la Fuente had an attack of the giggles as he recalled how when he was a kid only three television events gathered his family around the screen: the national team, Eurovision and the gloriously silly, inexplicably bizarre gameshow Un, dos, tres (whose UK version was 3-2-1).
