Drama at the death as Aspas lifts Spain
ISPAIN 2 MOROCCO 2
t WILL be a long climb to the top of the world from here if Spain are actually going to get there.
Group B’s quite extraordinary denouement — Spain’s late equaliser and then a later one from Iran — could see the 2010 champions, as group winners, face Croatia and England or Belgium, rather than France and Germany or Brazil. Before that, a host nation who were taken apart yesterday by Uruguay.
But it was not a bold stride towards the knockout phase. the night — salvaged by VAR correctly overruling the assistant who, in the first minute of added time, called substitute Iago Aspas’s back-heeled flick offside — ended with the North African’s Noureddine Amrabat calling the technology ‘bull****’.
the Moroccan bench also claimed Fernando Hierro’s coaching staff had put pressure on the referee to get the decision reviewed, which the manager denied.
the argument against the technology is flawed because VAR called it right. But the bigger picture is a defence which has conceded five goals in the group and, in this game, even found Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique lacking. ‘Five goals in three matches is not the way forward,’ Hierro said. ‘If others score so easily, it will be very difficult to reach our goal.’
Both goals were poor from a Spanish perspective. the tournament has not been shaken to its foundations by them.
It was a fight from the start and the Moroccans’ game plan — kick a Spaniard — was unedifying. Five of their players were booked before barely half an hour was out.
More unexpected, though, was Spain’s combustibility. Pique was fortunate not to be sent off for his two-footed tackle on Khalid Boutaib early on. He had left the ground when he leaped into the tackle, though Younes Belhanda’s challenge on Andres Iniesta could also have incurred red.
there was a moment of Spanish floundering in front of defence, too, when Iniesta’s heavy touch left him and Sergio Ramos dithering over who should take control. Each left the task to the other, resulting in Boutaib seizing the ball, sprinting 20 yards with it, and just about managing to tuck his shot through David de Gea’s legs.
Spain levelled inside five minutes through the finest piece of passing architecture — five quick exchanges between Iniesta, Isco and Diego Costa, which concluded with Isco tapping home.
For 20 minutes before the interval, Iniesta ran the game, but for all the work around the edges of Morocco’s defence, there was little incision. Isco was outstanding, Costa oddly becalmed.
On 81 minutes substitute Youssef En Nesyri stunned Spain, rising above Ramos to power home a header. there were still two more twists. Isco’s cross was flicked in by Aspas, played onside by Boussoufa. And then, Iran’s late leveller. ‘the luck of the champion? We will have