DOHA: Gavi came in wearing a finely cut dark suit matched with oversized white trainers. These days, they do not look odd to the middle-aged gaze anymore. It helped that the shirt was crisp white and unbuttoned at the neck. The sartorial awakening apart, what else left a mark was that it was the only time when Gavi represented calm and poise all evening. It was the most astonishing transformation. Because only less than an hour earlier, he was all sweaty, a young boy’s cheeks flushed with effort and intensity, hair tousled racing into the angry scrap huddle to extricate Dani Olmo from a couple of extremely confused and hapless Costa Rican defenders.
A strange older man’s Zen, because he had also been hurling himself on top of the pyramid each time Spain scored in their opening game here on Wednesday. And they scored many. Someone pointed out that Spain had scored eight goals on their way to winning the 2010 title in South Africa, here in Qatar – 12 years and nearly a generation later – they already have seven in their first game itself.
