Iniesta: “On the day of the final I felt decisive and it was so”

Andrés Iniesta Luján (Fuentealbilla, Albacete, May 11, 1984) can afford to have two birthdays. The natural, who has allowed him to turn 36 as an active footballer and the one inherited for scoring the winning goal in the final of the World Cup in Johannesburg against the Netherlands. Today, July 11th marks the tenth anniversary.

-To talk about Iniesta and the national team is to talk about the goal of Johannesburg, the goal that is worth a World Cup, the first and only one in history, but on his visiting card he has 131 games, with the National Team. They could have been much more than nothing that the injuries had not been so inopportune.

-Yes, they could have been more … or less too, depending on how you look at it. In the end I am left with the fact of being there for so many years. And that is what I take and value.

-Continuity.

-Twelve years. The moments of injuries make you lose games, but in the end in the general calculation I am proud to have worn that shirt for so long.

-In that time he scored 14 goals. Few? The righteous? Or is one worth the 14?

-Those who are. I would have liked to mark more, I will not fool you. But the important thing is that in the National Team I have had a great time. I have had difficult moments and unique moments, the best. I simply do not like the goals I have scored. I prefer to keep everything else.

– I speak to him of the goals, because in the times of Luis Aragonés, the technician was very obsessed with that facet of his. He thought he was not exploiting it as it should. I know that I was telling you. “Andrés has to shoot more”

-It is true. He made it clear to me that it should be so and I tried. It's not that I didn't want to shoot more at certain times, because in the end we all like to score goals… But maybe he had another mentality to pass or look for another option before shooting. When he shot, of course, it was because he believed it was the best option.

-When is the first time that the national team enters your life?

-I have a very marked World Cup in United States 94. I was 10 years old and I remember it perfectly. The Selection was one step away. I had a good group with very good players. Luis Enrique, Caminero, Guardiola, Goicoetxea … That is my first memory and it left me with a good image.

-The Selection is like your second skin. He was in Barcelona almost all his life but with the lower categories too. Since the sub-16 and went through all the teams. It seems as if he was born with La Roja on.

-Barça and the national team have been my two teams, the two have been practically parallel. They were dreams that I was fulfilling. Look back, enjoy and watch so many games in one place, so many in the other …

-Only the Olympic Games have been missing. Did you ever think about them?

-I've thought about it, but not enough to say that I have a thorn left for not having been to some Games. I have played Europeans, World Cups and the Games has not been given the opportunity.

-Debuting in Albacete with the National Team was obviously a fluke.

-An unforgettable day. Debut and do it in Albacete, at Carlos Belmonte, where I have only played a few times … It is the best. They are magical parties.

-And then comes the 2006 World Cup. Did you know how to play only one game or were you satisfied that you entered the final squad with only 22 years old?

-He didn't know me a little. You always want more and you understand that you can contribute some more things, but it was as it was. I was able to debut with 13 on my back, which was a very good step. And well … I came last. Reina or Cañizares, I don't remember, they didn't like 13. They chose another number and I had that one.

–His first international goal was in Manchester against England in a friendly match. Wembley was under construction. It was played at Old Trafford … I could write the chronicle of that first goal.

-The ball was held by 'the guaje' (Villa) on the left, he left the defender or faced him and took a cross with his left foot, Silva came in to finish off the header and the ball was in the front. I controlled it, the ball bounced and I made a diagonal kick for the squad … and entered. Goal. 0-1 and a beautiful goal-scoring start. In addition, from that moment I believe that the Selection began to have a certain stability in terms of results and game.

-That goal and that game were important, but after all it was a friendly match. Then came Aarhus's match against Denmark, which was already official and almost decisive.

-Yes, those two games mark the turning point at the game level, at the level of what the team wanted to propose. And also that party was very defining. We had to win and we did very well.

-Everything that happened later, Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012, knew better after all that group suffered and the criticism of Luis for stopping calling Raúl. There were troubled moments. The Oviedo party. Everything was more enjoyable to know where it came from …

-When things are hard, you always know better later when you get what you have cost so much. It is more enjoyable. But we did have difficult times, it is true. After the World Cup in Germany, that initial period of the qualifying phase for the European Championship was difficult. The 'mister' had a bad time. Everyone had a bad time. The fans also because they see that their equipment does not work. It was difficult, but look how it ended.

– We got to the Euro Cup. Quarter finals. Penalties against Italy. What went through your head? You had heard the most veterans of the team a thousand times tell that the quarters and penalties arrived and we always went home …

-When you arrive at those moments, of course things are being thought, you know it is heads or tails. Penalties are a lottery. You always trust the goalkeeper, in this case Iker one hundred percent and the pitchers.

-Of the Vienna final, what memory, what image, what situation, what moment, will remain forever in your memory?

-The moment of Torres' goal. That is the one that is marked, although later the game as a whole was good. When we beat Russia in the semifinals, the team realized that we could win the title.

– What football did you learn from Luis?

-Everything. At a tactical level. Then, as we mentioned before, I encouraged you to be an aggressive player in certain parts of the field offensively. You learn everything in general. Football is complete, not just a detail.

-And personally?

-I learned that he was passionate about soccer, passionate about his players, passionate about winning, doing things well and, above all, that you had to trust yourself and your partner. He always said that the starting player should leave everything on the field because then there would be another teammate who would be ready to end the game. It instilled in us a sense of group that is not easy to achieve.

– How was the Luis-Del Bosque transition? Was it quiet?

– As it had to be and as the 'mister', Vicente, is. Very naturally and he added his coach's touch, with some player changes, but it was a positive transition, as it could not be otherwise.

-The year before the World Cup in South Africa was a bad year for you. I think he had five injuries. I would come out of one and relapse. There were moments of discouragement. And, nevertheless, then the World Cup arrives and as the games went by, the best Iniesta was seen. Then comes the day that changes your life.

-Life and sports have these things. The strength of each one makes things happen or not happen. After the most difficult moments came the best moments of my life. Many months of work and sacrifice and in the end things turned out the way they did. It is true that from there there was an important turning point.

-How and how much does your life change after the goal of the final?

-I wouldn't know how to quantify it, but a lot. It was very important. Everything that had come before had been good, but everything that had come after had been magnificent. It changes more externally than internally.

-He confessed that on that day of the final he felt a great inner strength … As if he foreshadowed that he was facing a great day. How does a footballer explain that feeling to the fan?

-I felt very strong, very confident. He wanted to have the ball, he wanted to decide, if he had a player in front he knew he was going to dribble. I felt confident to be decisive and so it was. I have seen the game afterwards and went from less to more. I played the extension with a lot of strength and strength.

-The inner outside did not abandon him …

-Not. He had a terrible desire, like everyone else, to win that final.

-This World Cup must have been accompanied by a Golden Ball in recognition of his goal, his Championship, the previous Euro Cup, his career at Barça …

-It wouldn't make it personal for me. I think that some Spanish footballer in all that time could have deserved it. It was six years and possibly it would have been logical. But in the end they are added things to soccer. It is not football itself.

–Euro 2012 was the culmination of the work.

-Yes, I think it was our best moment. The most complete. At all levels. Of game, of sensations.

-From the 2014 World Cup in Brazil I will take one detail. The hug he gives to Vicente del Bosque. With that hug, what did you want to say to the coach?

-That hug had a lot of emotion, a lot of sympathy, a lot of strength, a lot … We all had a really hard time. The 'mister' is a very dear person, highly respected by everyone and I knew that he had a hard time, just like everyone else. It was like a farewell from there.

-You could imagine that after the three consecutive titles what happened could happen. The World Cup in Brazil can be a bad experience, but then Euro 2016 comes and the same thing happens. The World Cup in Russia… Did you expect that team, at the level of results, could fall that way? Or is it normal that after three titles and six years in the elite, at the top, what happened can happen?

-I don't know if it is normal or not normal. You certainly don't imagine it. For me we have continued to have real teams. And both in Brazil, in France, and in Russia, we were many of them and we were still teams. But when you don't do things well and when not everything comes together as it has to be, it is difficult to win. The normal thing is not to win. The normal thing is to be there and not win. That is why we value, or try to value, what has been won and try to win again, as will be attempted from now on.

– He says goodbye by letter from the Selection. Why by letter and not at a press conference? Were you afraid of getting over excited and the letter is always colder?

– If I say the truth it was because it turned out like that. I didn't think about it either. Everything went very fast. You finish the World Cup, there is no time. Also the way to end … It does not tarnish everything else, but the moment that was very hot could not have been the best. If I did now it would be totally different. I said goodbye like that because it was how I felt and then I went to Japan.

-He said this phrase: “It was not the farewell that I dreamed of.” Did it hurt a lot about the last day, not being a starter against Russia?

– Yes. Very, very much. It hurt a lot …

-Fernando Hierro, whom we have interviewed in this 100-year-old serial of La Roja, confessed that before the game he told him that he was not going to play, that he was with the only player who spoke, who explained why he was not a starter, He explained the ideas that he had for that party … When he gives him all those kinds of explanations, what do you say?

-I tell you what I told you later. I have always respected my coaches. He respected his decision but did not share it at all.

-You were one of her pretty children, if not the most.

-No, no … He believed that was the best and is totally respectable because a coach always thinks of the best, just like me, but he couldn't share it either for the moment or for everything. It was very hard and difficult for me to accept it.

Over time he has overcome it, but not forgotten.