Affable and well-mannered, 65-year-old Luis de la Fuente is not a coach for hyperbole. In need of another moment of magic in the greenhouse of a stadium in Los Angeles, the Spain head coach threw on his ace in his pack. Two minutes later, Mikel Merino was a late-show match-winner once again, pouncing with a substitute spring in his step to overcome Belgium’s resilient showing. Yet assuming De la Fuente’s words of wisdom for the midfielder were awe-inspiring would be misguided.
“The truth is… he told me very little,” Merino said after his 88th-minute quarter-final winner on Friday, witnessed by his two-month-old son Marco. “He [De la Fuente] told me it’s something about [being a] number 10. And then when the match ended, he told me I was incredible – and those were the two things he commented to me.”
