Luis Enrique will greet Mauro Tassotti, Shevchenko's assistant coach in Ukraine and the defender who will be at the Olympic stadium in Kiev tonight. He broke his nose with a merciless elbow 26 years ago, during the Spain-Italy World Cup in the United States 1994. The Asturian does not want to speak publicly about the matter, but according to sources from the Federation “He has turned the page a long time ago. He will greet Tassotti, because he also knows that he is sorry for that action.”
So there will be anticipation before the meeting to capture the image of reconciliation. The truth is that the anti-coronavirus protocol expressly prohibits shaking hands in greetings, but at least we can expect them to greet each other with the elbow …, without any ulterior motive. In an interview with El País, Tassotti acknowledges that half a century after that aggression that broke Luis Enrique's nose and the dream of Spain in the US-94 still feels “regret and shame”.
His own federation, Federcalcio, sanctioned him with eight games before waiting for the FIFA correction “I missed the final of a World Cup at the age of 34, something irrecoverable. It was an instinctive gesture and in no way did I want to break Luis Enrique's nose, but it happened. I was wrong and fate made me pay for it. In a player's career there are good and less good moments and they all have to be accepted. Especially when it's your fault. “
Now it is Luis Enrique who has to take the next step, which will be tonight before the match between Ukraine and Spain in Kiev, the same stadium in which Spain won the 2012 Eurocup and closed a wonderful cycle that had begun six years earlier, in Euro 2008 when he eliminated in the penalty shootout … Italy. Tassotti was no longer in that Azurra.