Spain 3, Turkey 0
ESP: Morata 34’, 48’; Nolito 37’
The champions have thrown down a gauntlet at the European Championship. The tournament’s most emphatic margin of victory yet – 3-0 - ushers in Week 2, and the name of Alvaro Morata joins those of Gareth Bale, Dmitri Payet and Bogdan Stancu at the top of the individual goalscorers’ table.
Morata’s was the first double of the event so far, and a signal that, in the 23-year-old striker, Spain, the title-holders, have a potent, intelligent centre-forward to fill a vacancy that has been advertised for most of the last four or five years, from even before they last finished a major tournament with the gold medal.
That was at Euro 2012. Those were the days of the so-called ‘false number nine’, when Spain would often line up with six men answering the description of ‘midfielder’ switching around the duty of leading the forward line.
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It did them no great harm, but since David Villa, the country’s all-time record goalscorer, ceased his international career, Spain have known that, for all the abundant creativity in their midfield, a sharp point at the front of attack is not a convention that will go out of fashion forever.
Morata scored a pair of good centre-forward’s goals against Turkey in Nice. There was a header from a cross. There was a tap-in, the latter a reward for positioning himself well after Andres Iniesta – excellent, as he had been in Spain’s previous win against the Czech Republic – had threaded through a pass for the overlapping Jordi Alba.
That was the most classically Spanish goal of the four they have scored so far at Euro 2016, engineered via neat, precise, well-timed short passes.
But they had inflicted the main wound on a lacklustre Turkey thanks to Morata’s first, a well-directed header from a cross, a move which is not in chapter one of the modern tiki-taka textbook, no more than the goal that settled the more nervous encounter against the Czech Republic on their opening matchday, 1-0 thanks to Gerard Pique nodding in Iniesta’s centre.
It was a gratifying night for the wise, experienced man in one technical area, a fraught evening for the veteran in the other.
Turkey’s fans were noisy in Nice, but their team were humbled. Head coach Fatih Terim angrily threw a bottle to the ground, spilling its contents, after Spain went 2-0 up – Nolito the scorer, scruffily connecting with the ball with his shin - and sentenced the Turks to the foot of the table, with no points. Spain march confidently through to the last 16.
Between them, the 65 year-old Vicente Del Bosque, Spain's head coach and Terim, 62, have been in charge of their national teams for close to 20 years. They have crossed swords a few times, either in charge of Real Madrid and Galatasaray, or in Turkish football, where Del Bosque once worked.
They both know when is the best time to spring a surprise, and when not to. Del Bosque had a surprise in his line-up. It was not an individual. It was the fact that, for the first time in 52 successive matches under his watch, he named the same Spain XI as in the previous game.
For players like Morata and Nolito, both in their first senior tournaments, that felt like a vote of confidence. Nolito, operating somewhat as Villa used to, cutting in from wide on the left, looked for openings, risked efforts from long-range and was thrilled to put his name on the scoresheet, just after he had provided the assist for Morata.
Morata, meanwhile, is making the central striker’s position his own.
In Spain teams, that can mean showing some patience. The waiting is not for teammates to gain possession. Spain will always have plenty of that. The trick is to eke out the slivers of space in the tightly caged defences that opposition teams, particularly in the earlier stages of tournaments, tend to barricade against Spain.
But Morata, who has developed fine instincts since he left Real Madrid for Juventus two summers ago, makes alert runs to near post and far post. One such, to show himself for a Jordi Alba cross, put Turkey under pressure early on.
Spain maintained that pressure. Morata got his goals. Turkey were thoroughly tamed with barely half the contest played.
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