Spain benefitted in their last group game from Slovakia’s Martin Dubravka throwing the ball into his own net, so clearly frustrated at Spain’s inability to find the area between the posts that he felt there was no choice but to show them how easy it could be. People in sports love to say these things even out over a season, maybe even a short tournament. Rarely is it less than a week:
This has happened to every back or midfielder at least once in their life. You think you’re making a safe pass back to your keeper, only to suddenly see your goalie sprinting after a pass that is slowly rolling into the net. It just usually doesn’t happen at the international level. Blame Simón, blame Pedri. Either way, not only were they not on the same page with this pass, they weren’t even reading the same book.
Perhaps what’s funniest about this, which I admit is quite the peak to ascend, is that manager Luis Enrique has been picking Unai Simón over David De Gea because of his ability to play the ball out of defense. He’s going to have to ping a gaggle of 60-yard passes to streaking forwards to make up for this.