Spain boss Luis Enrique humiliated by his own ‘homework’ task

World Cup 2022 briefing: Day 17

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Spain manager Luis Enrique was left embarrassed by his team’s penalty shootout horror show as Morocco battled through to the World Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday. Despite pleading with his players to practice, they missed every single one after 120 minutes of hard-fought action against the North African side. 

Spain were heavily fancied to come through their World Cup Round of 16 clash against Morocco, having played fluid football since landing in Qatar. It served them well to begin with as they put together a statement 7-0 win over Costa Rica with Ferran Torres scoring twice. 

But things only went downhill from their as they drew with Germany, who failed to make it out of the group stages, and lost to giant killers Japan. Tuesday’s tie against Morocco saw them enjoy plenty of the ball but they struggled to make the most of the chances that fell their way.

Pablo Sarabia arguably had the best of the lost, coming on as a substitute deep into the second half of extra time to miss a close-range volley at the back post and then the first penalty in the shootout. 

He wasn’t the only guilty party, however, as Sergio Busquets and Carlos Soler also saw their spot-kicks saved to give Morocco a rare 3-0 penalty-shootout victory. Enrique was beside himself on the bench, and who can blame him after recently revealing that he had tasked his players with practicing 1000 penalties each before the World Cup. 

“I imagine that they have done their homework,” Enrique explained in a press conference earlier this week. “Over a year ago, in one of the Spain camps, I told them they had to get here with at least 1,000 penalties taken.

“If you wait until getting here to practise penalties… [it won’t be enough]. It’s a moment of maximum tension, a time to show your nerve and that you can shoot the penalty in the way you have decided, if you have trained it a thousand times. It says a lot about each player.

“It’s trainable, manageable, how you manage the tension. It’s increasingly less luck – the goalkeepers have more influence. We have a very good goalkeeper, any of the three can do very well in this situation. Every time we finish training, I see a lot of players taking penalties.”

Although Spain’s penalties left plenty to be desire, Moroccan goalkeeper Bono was superb throughout the game and Achraf Hakimi decided the shootout in spectacular fashion, chipping a penanka past the despairing Unai Simon. 

“It’s intelligent to practise something that you’re going to do, but there’s nothing that can prepare yourself,” former England star Joe Cole told ITV after the final whistle. “A manager has got to look into a players eyes, he’s got to have a managerial instinct, a feel, of what players feel, what the energy in the stadium is like.”

Enrique declined the chance to discuss his future as Spain manager after the game and took full responsibility for the defeat. “It’s my responsibility,” he said. “I chose the first three penalty takers.”

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