A Cup that could surprise,

Spain firing head coach might be just the beginning as 2018 World Cup opens in Russia

MOSCOW— No one expected the Spanish inquisition.

On the eve of a FIFA World Cup that had “unpredictable” as most frequent label attached to it by pundits both professional and armchair, Spain took the designation and ran with it.

One of the tournament’s favourites to win it all, Spain took a match to all preconceived expectations Wednesday and torched them, sacking head coach Julen Lopetegui 24 hours before the curtain comes up on Russia 2018. The Spaniards face rival Portugal on Friday.

Spanish club Real Madrid revealed Tuesday that Lopetegui would become its next coach at the culmination of the World Cup, in spite of the fact he had recently signed an extension to his deal with the national team. For the president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, it was an unconscionable betrayal. He sacked Lopetegui and installed one of his assistants, Fernando Hierro, in his place.

Real’s impatient torpedoing of their own representative team is almost of a piece with the times. This is an era in which the mega clubs of Europe dominate the game’s landscape. The World Cup, of course, is supposed to be sacred. But even sacred cows can find their way on to a plate eventually.

So much of the money that flows into the coffers of the Champions League giants can be bracketed as petro-dollars, with oligarchs and sheikhs looking for playthings and pouring their profits into soccer.

The era of excess — in salaries and transfer fees and TV rights — has duly taken hold.

It’s almost fitting, then, that on Thursday at Moscow’s cavernous Luzhniki Stadium, the international game’s grandest old carnival should begin with at least a nod to the times. Host nation Russia will take on Saudi Arabia in a contest that some have gone ahead and christened El Gasico.

But there’s still a beauty in the international game that can’t yet be tarnished by money.

If money spoke at the World Cup, then this meeting of the host nation and the Saudis wouldn’t be being teed up in the terms it is — as the two worst teams at the tournament kicking us off with what is expected to be a dour spectacle.

Spain, the 2010 champion, had been spoken of as a contender after going through qualifying unbeaten. But after Wednesday, no one knows what comes next for arguably the most creative team at the tournament. So what do we know? We know that defending champion Germany is still ridiculously talented, so much so that they can leave Leroy Sane — the best young player of the English Premier League — at home with no room among their final 23.

We know Brazil has demons to exorcize like never before, the national trauma inflicted upon them by the Germans in that historic meltdown in Belo Horizonte four years ago a scar that can only be healed through triumph. They have the tools to do just that. In Tite, they have a coach who has proven he can get the very best out of Brazil’s very best and ease the pressures on their best of all, Neymar.

We know France and Belgium come to Russia with squads so rich in talent that looking for weaknesses can be a fool’s errand. For both, the more obvious flaws don’t come on the field but on the sidelines or in the psyche. Both teams can be world beaters, but they have to have seven such days in succession.

We know that the hopes of Argentina and Portugal will rest entirely upon the shoulders of the two greatest players of the generation, perhaps of any generation. Russia is almost certainly the final World Cup rodeo for both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. That is a jarring thought. So too is the idea that neither will likely retire with a winner’s medal that matters most.

We don’t know … but we think that England might just at last be likeable. In unassuming head coach Gareth Southgate and a cast of younger, fresher talent, the English have mercifully less expectation.

We know there are newcomers — Panama and the hipster vikings of Iceland. We know there will be surprise packages — Colombia, Senegal and Egypt among the likely lads. We know there will be controversy and the video assistant refereeing system will likely implode at just the wrong time.

Most of all, we know it will be chaotic and kaleidoscopic and downright captivating. The unknowns? Only one way to find out.