Spain dominate their way to flight back home

Spain head coach Luis Enrique proved that he was a man of his word, delivering exactly what he had promised in La Furia Roja's Round of 16 clash in the World Cup against Morocco.

 "I am not concerned about the result," Enrique had proclaimed ahead of the match. "This might be cliche but I want to control the things I can and as a coach, I want my team to play in a certain way."

Enrique was, of course, speaking about micromanaging the team to mimic the legendary tiki-taka, which transformed football from simple sport to decadent art. The philosophy saw Spain complete 3,542 passes in Qatar, nearly 1,000 more than the next-best team in the 2022 World Cup of Passing, Argentina, have attempted.

 "I want my players to forget about the result and concentrate on the way they play. For me, this is a show, we need to entertain the fans. We should not just go and get a victory any way we can."

Against Morocoo, Spain turned the dial up to 11 in terms of entertainment. They completed 969 of 1088 passes, with euphoric fans bleeding from their palms as they clapped for each with increasing fervour.

Dig deep into the football analytics wormhole and you can even see that Spain had "field tilt" of 82.2 percent at this World Cup, which compares the share of possession each team has in their attacking third compared to their opponent. It is undeniable territorial dominance.

But, despite fate, fortune and football's favour going Morocco's way in a penalty shootout, Luis Enrique was unbothered: "Were you at the game? Did you have your back turned? If we did one thing, it was dominate. I am more than satisfied with what my team has done. They perfectly executed my idea of football. I am proud of them."

Spain legend Zhavi summed it up best: "Football is not measured by shots. It doesn't matter that Spain had only one shot. What matters is how many times Spain made the crowd gasp, how much their players enjoyed each delicately caressed pass. It is equally about dominating your opponent, stepping into their territory and letting them know that the boss has the ball. There are only two things that truly matter in our sport: how many beautiful passes you have completed and the length of the grass."