Iker & Zubi at El País’s Mundial 2010 suplemento especial

Much like El Mundo, El País has also come out with a very elegantly produced World Cup supplement for the literary-minded.  They start off with an interview of Vicente del Bosque, accompanied by pictures of him in el Madrid de los Austrias (the old part of Madrid), and follow with a conversation between Iker Casillas and Andoni Zubizarreta.  That’s comes before a dialogue between Sergio Ramos and Rafael Alkorta, and then we get Xavi vs. Xabi!  And finally, David Villa and Mario Kempes sit down for a talk.  In between, there’s a whole bunch of graphics and other photographs, including one of my beloved Pep Guardiola!

I will of course be bringing all that to you, as fast as I can translate!

I’ll start with Iker (did you really expect someone else?).

Keep reading for the interview, plus a picture of the hands of the two great goalkeepers!

The interview takes place after Spain’s game against Saudi Arabia in Innsbruck.  All the players are hanging out in the hotel lobby in informal clothes, because they have the next day free, with the exception of Iker Casillas, who is still in the team’s official shirt and shorts.  During the game, he had made a mistake that led to the first goal for the Saudis.

Zubizarreta: How are you? How are you after today’s game?

Casillas: No… good… well that’s what happens after a break…

Z: Today you came out wearing blue…

C: It was the blue’s turn.  We have to change.

Z: Do you choose or use them in rotation?

C: No, you change a bit.  The truth is, I like the blue and the green.  But now we have to abide by FIFA rules, they choose what colors we can wear…

Z: How have you been since 2000?  I stopped playing in 2000, while you were in the Eurocopa with José Antonio Camacho and you were el niño.  How have you changed?

C: You change a lot.  You change because the level of responsibility you have is not the same.  You change because your level of self-confidence is different.  You change because how much the coach demands from you is different.  With Camacho, I didn’t treat my presence as a reward.  I took it as an opportunity.  I knew that I had to respect the hierarchy (Cañizares and Molina), but I had a lot of hope.  And I learned a lot, I’ve always been very observant.  I like to observe people, and I observed everyone.  I studied Guardiola, I saw that he was always the last one on the bus, that he learned English by watching subtitled DVDs on his computer… I studied Abelardo, Sergi, Hierro… I’ve spent time with the football greats of this country.

Z: And when you talk about responsibilities, are you referring to your own, or that which you give to others?

C: No, it’s what you have yourself.  It’s been a little more than 100 games, it’s been… (Zubizarreta has played 126 games, and the Saudi Arabian game was Casillas’ 103rd).

Z: We’ll talk about this later.

C: I have to stay quiet when I have you in front of me…

Z: What have you taught Pedro and Javi Martínez?

C: I don’t spend a lot of time with them, but there is respect.  I hope they look at you like I did in my day with Guardiola, Abelardo, Sergi…

Z: What do you put in your suitcase when you go on trips like these?

C: My toilet bag, and now with all the new technology, an iPod, some books, I’ve packed Los secretos de la Roja [Iker and I are reading the same book!!!], movies, TV series…

Z: Is there anything that you always bring?  I had a coin that someone gave me… no… a doll.  I got it in a market in the World Cup in Mexico, someone told me that it would bring me luck, and it stayed 12 years in my bag.  I always swore that it wasn’t there, but when I opened it, there it was.

C:  No, I don’t have anything like that.

Z: You don’t have any manias or superstitions?

C: Well manias, yes.  People already know that I like to play with short sleeves, that I like to cut off the bottom of my shirt, that I like to have another layer on under the shirt… I’m less classic than you are.

Z: You’ve started a trend.  A lot of people have begun playing with the short sleeves.

C: It’s not a trend.  But when you play in Madrid, everyone sees everything.  I remember in the cantera Vicente [del Bosque] wouldn’t let me play with short sleeves, he only let me roll them up a bit.  In the third year, I started cutting them, after three years of playing for the first team.  By that time, no one had anything to say to me.

Z: What do you hope to gain from this World Cup?  You were in Korea and Germany, you know the how much hope is generated… What do you think of this team, of the fact that the whole world thinks that it will win the final?  Do you think about what will happen if we don’t win?

C: You don’t think about it, but there is the possibility that it will happen.  We’re going in with the intention of getting as far as possible, and of making the people happy with your effort.  But we’re also conscious that anyone could have a bad day.  We found that out in the Confederations Cup, when the game where we had the most opportunities, the most shots and where we created countless occasions, we didn’t score a goal, and the United States, which had two occasions, scored two goals.  Everything’s a factor.

Z: How is it in the tunnel?  Is it the same as in Madrid?  There are teams that are more concentrated, some that are more vocal… Camacho didn’t let us even blink…

C: It’s very calm.  Because we know that we have a team.  Before, it was hard for the national team to play as a team.  There weren’t any leaders.  Now, we talk and we say, “today, we have to do this…” You look at the players and you say, “here, we have a team!”  The important thing is that there is equilibrium in the team.

Z: Is the issue of Víctor Valdés affecting you?  How do you see it?  I think that Diego López could have voiced some legitimate declarations, and the fact that he didn’t shows what kind of player he is.

C: There are people that have earned the right to be here, and for the míster and for us, it’s hard that some who suffered with us in the qualifying phases isn’t here.  Diego spent two years with us getting here and of course we’re not going to forget about it.  Víctor shouldn’t be bothered because Pepe and I are going to talk about Diego once in a while.

Z: It seems like people want to create controversy between Reina, Valdés and you… “But they don’t look at each other!  Pepe and Iker talk more!”  Well that’s natural because Pepe and Iker have known each other for years… Today I saw you training and I would pay money to see the goalkeepers train from now until the World Cup.

C: It’s that this team requires that there be competition.