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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – His face tends to look weary and haggard, his eyes sunken in an expression of angst straight off some biblical-time painting.
In footballing terms, he seems a defiant anti-hero, with his unruly locks – lots of them – that hark back to the late Seventies, when he might have looked a little more at home than today as full-page poster matter in a teenager’s “Shoot!” annual.
If you passed him in the street and had no interest whatsoever in soccer, you might be excused for mistaking him for a drummer in a heavy metal band, perhaps.
But Carles Puyol is all footballer, for sure … and on Thursday Spain woke up saluting the oh-so-precious ticket he gave the country to their first ever World Cup final appearance.
We will be blessed with a first-time winner of the trophy at Soccer City on Sunday night, whatever happens in the Spaniards’ tasty encounter with Holland.
There was certainly some irony in his lone semi-final goal to scupper German dreams in Durban coming from a good, old-fashioned header from a corner, when the Spanish strength in recent times has been the untroubled way they caress the ball about the carpet.
I had been an admirer of Puyol long before he registered the most important goal of his professional career, in the 73rd minute of an intriguing more than thrilling game at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
He just seems so much an integral, yet unfussy and unfailingly workaholic part of any side he plays in – and there aren’t many, because he is a devoutly one-club Barcelona man, to go with his 89 international caps.
A consummate, tough professional, he simply gets on with his job in central defence and another pleasing trait is that he is less likely than most to succumb to cheap histrionics and hoodwinking of referees … although most modern footballers have their “moments”, it is true.
Aged a craggy 32, you would expect that the Johannesburg climax will be Puyol’s first and also last opportunity to win a World Cup final.
Whatever happens a few days up the drag, he can be chuffed about his seismic role in getting Spain there.
It will be their opportunity to buck a long-time trend suggesting that defending European champions do not go on to claim, two years yonder, the next World Cup: the last time it occurred was when the then-West Germany claimed Euro glory in Belgium in 1972, thumping the Soviet Union 3-0 in the final, before winning the bigger prize in 1974 at the expense (2-1) of this Sunday’s other finalists, the Netherlands.
Similarly, no team to have lost their opening World Cup match – Spain surrendered their Group H encounter with Switzerland 1-0 at the very scene of their semi-final triumph – has yet gone on to the ultimate achievement.
Perhaps those are statistics to give Holland heart.
In the SuperSport studio, analysts Thomas Berthold, Gary Mabbutt and John Barnes made a meal of the uncharacteristically, fatally slack German set-piece marking as Puyol got on the end of Barca team-mate Xavi’s corner kick.
Certainly there was negligence at play, but sometimes also you have give credit when a thick-set stopper comes rampaging, as Puyol did, through the clutter like a freight train that resolutely won’t be halted.
It was a beautiful, quite emphatic goal … perhaps not acknowledged as such only because it did not come from one of the prettier boys on the park?
Puyol timed to perfection first his incursion, then his jump, and then the header itself, cannoning off his shrapnel-scarred forehead to really give Manuel Neuer, the decent German goalkeeper, no prayer.
Former England man Barnes had a rightful word of sympathy for Germany, whose youthful and ever more multi-cultural side will challenge anew for major honours in the years ahead.
“(They) hit the heights against England and Argentina; it was always going to be difficult to sustain that in the semi. We should see a good final between two fine passing sides.
“Holland, with Robben and Sneijder pressing forward, may ask more questions of Spain than Germany did in this match.”
He might have added, though, that getting behind a committed Carles Puyol cannot ever be taken for granted …
Cape Town – His face tends to look weary and haggard, his eyes sunken in an expression of angst straight off some biblical-time painting.
In footballing terms, he seems a defiant anti-hero, with his unruly locks – lots of them – that hark back to the late Seventies, when he might have looked a little more at home than today as full-page poster matter in a teenager’s “Shoot!” annual.
If you passed him in the street and had no interest whatsoever in soccer, you might be excused for mistaking him for a drummer in a heavy metal band, perhaps.
But Carles Puyol is all footballer, for sure … and on Thursday Spain woke up saluting the oh-so-precious ticket he gave the country to their first ever World Cup final appearance.
We will be blessed with a first-time winner of the trophy at Soccer City on Sunday night, whatever happens in the Spaniards’ tasty encounter with Holland.
There was certainly some irony in his lone semi-final goal to scupper German dreams in Durban coming from a good, old-fashioned header from a corner, when the Spanish strength in recent times has been the untroubled way they caress the ball about the carpet.
I had been an admirer of Puyol long before he registered the most important goal of his professional career, in the 73rd minute of an intriguing more than thrilling game at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
He just seems so much an integral, yet unfussy and unfailingly workaholic part of any side he plays in – and there aren’t many, because he is a devoutly one-club Barcelona man, to go with his 89 international caps.
A consummate, tough professional, he simply gets on with his job in central defence and another pleasing trait is that he is less likely than most to succumb to cheap histrionics and hoodwinking of referees … although most modern footballers have their “moments”, it is true.
Aged a craggy 32, you would expect that the Johannesburg climax will be Puyol’s first and also last opportunity to win a World Cup final.
Whatever happens a few days up the drag, he can be chuffed about his seismic role in getting Spain there.
It will be their opportunity to buck a long-time trend suggesting that defending European champions do not go on to claim, two years yonder, the next World Cup: the last time it occurred was when the then-West Germany claimed Euro glory in Belgium in 1972, thumping the Soviet Union 3-0 in the final, before winning the bigger prize in 1974 at the expense (2-1) of this Sunday’s other finalists, the Netherlands.
Similarly, no team to have lost their opening World Cup match – Spain surrendered their Group H encounter with Switzerland 1-0 at the very scene of their semi-final triumph – has yet gone on to the ultimate achievement.
Perhaps those are statistics to give Holland heart.
In the SuperSport studio, analysts Thomas Berthold, Gary Mabbutt and John Barnes made a meal of the uncharacteristically, fatally slack German set-piece marking as Puyol got on the end of Barca team-mate Xavi’s corner kick.
Certainly there was negligence at play, but sometimes also you have give credit when a thick-set stopper comes rampaging, as Puyol did, through the clutter like a freight train that resolutely won’t be halted.
It was a beautiful, quite emphatic goal … perhaps not acknowledged as such only because it did not come from one of the prettier boys on the park?
Puyol timed to perfection first his incursion, then his jump, and then the header itself, cannoning off his shrapnel-scarred forehead to really give Manuel Neuer, the decent German goalkeeper, no prayer.
Former England man Barnes had a rightful word of sympathy for Germany, whose youthful and ever more multi-cultural side will challenge anew for major honours in the years ahead.
“(They) hit the heights against England and Argentina; it was always going to be difficult to sustain that in the semi. We should see a good final between two fine passing sides.
“Holland, with Robben and Sneijder pressing forward, may ask more questions of Spain than Germany did in this match.”
He might have added, though, that getting behind a committed Carles Puyol cannot ever be taken for granted …
