The situation was only sorted out after the match. The culprit was punished as harshly as possible, but it didn’t help the Spaniards anymore…

The Spanish national team in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup already showed that they were capable of a lot. Luis Enrique’s gang was initially not considered among the tournament favorites by many, but the Spanish youth forced many experts to change their minds. Pedri and Gavi have already made everyone fall in love with them!

The duo of creative midfielders now represents the main target for opponents. But while some teams try to isolate the Spanish creators, others might simply knock them out of the game… 28 years ago, a similar fate befell the current coach of the Spanish national team, and also a legend of Barcelona and Real Madrid, Luis Enrique. At the 1994 World Cup, an opponent… broke the Spaniard’s nose.

Young Enrique lost half a liter of blood, but the referee didn’t even give the culprit a warning!

The Rise of a Great Player

If now the “Red Fury” is fairly associated with an elite team capable of fighting for gold in every tournament, in the last century such assessments would have been taken lightly. At continental championships, the Spaniards sometimes managed to shine, as was the case at the debut Euro-1964, where they took gold right away, but world championships never yielded to the team.

The Spaniards didn’t make the podium even once in the 20th century, although some generations deserved medals. In the early 90s, Luis Enrique and Josep Guardiola began their careers in the national team, which was then primarily associated with the name of the legendary goalkeeper Zubizarreta. The two future top club-level coaches then represented two La Liga giants—Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Luis Enrique – static.wikia.nocookie.net

The versatile Enrique started the last decade of the century in the “Royal Club,” covering almost all positions except central defender. In Madrid, they used Luis as they could, but never gave him the role of first violin. At the same time, 20-year-old Guardiola, debuting for his native Blaugrana, immediately became a key player. In 1992, both footballers made the Spanish Olympic team champions at the home Games.

The Chance for a New Generation

It seemed that after the Olympic victory, this team could make a splash at the 1994 World Cup in the USA. But the tournament immediately presented the Spaniards with a surprise in the form of a mysterious draw with South Korea in the first round. Having gained a two-goal advantage, Javier Clemente’s players allowed the Asian team to score twice at the end of the match and finish the game in a draw.

In the second round— a game against Germany. The Spaniards didn’t lose to the reigning world champions and even led during the match thanks to a goal from Goikoetxea, but in the second half, Klinsmann equalized. A very similar scenario played out in the match in Qatar, where only Füllkrug’s goal saved the Germans from defeat.

In the third match, Bolivia was crushed. From second place in their quartet, Enrique and his partners advanced to the round of 16 against Switzerland and experienced no difficulties (3:0), and Luis himself scored his first goal in the tournament.

The quarterfinal didn’t promise such an easy walk, as the Spaniards faced the bronze medalists of the previous World Cup, the Italians. True, the fact that they reached this stage of the tournament was already a miracle.

Arrigo Sacchi’s squad found itself in an amazing situation in the group stage, when all four teams earned four points each and had the same goal difference—0. Thanks to a higher number of goals scored, they edged out Norway and made it into the coveted four best third-placed teams across all groups. In the first playoff round, the Italians gained an advantage over Nigeria only in extra time thanks to a goal from the great Roberto Baggio, who scored a brace in that match.

Roberto Baggio – guim.co.uk

The Dirty Act

For the quarterfinal game, Sacchi brought back Milan defender Tassotti to the starting lineup, with whom the coach was dissatisfied after the defeat in the first match of the tournament against Ireland. And this decision became fatal for the footballer, almost turning into a failure for the national team as well.

The Italians took the lead thanks to a goal from Dino Baggio—a namesake of Roberto and, by the way, the only footballer in that playoff who scored for Italy besides Roberto himself. In the second half, Caminero equalized. The teams were already mentally preparing for extra time when the more famous Baggio went one-on-one with Zubizarreta, beat the veteran, and sent the ball into the empty net.

The shocked Spaniards rushed to equalize, and that’s when Tassotti had his say. Mauro sneakily hit Luis Enrique in the face as he was running onto a teammate’s cross. From the midfielder’s reaction, it was immediately clear that the injury was serious, but the referee paid no attention to it and only stopped the game when Luis himself and the team persistently asked for it.

Although the traces of the foul were literally on Enrique’s face (he was bleeding profusely), and the action itself took place in Italy’s penalty area, referee Sándor Puhl didn’t even think about awarding a penalty. The Spaniard was escorted off the field, where they futilely tried to stop the bleeding. Only after the final whistle did the camera show Luis’s bloodied face, vividly characterizing the injustice of what happened.

As it turned out later, Enrique lost about half a liter of blood. But for Tassotti, it ended much worse—the defender received a nine-game suspension, and this was the first such case in history. Previously, such decisions were never made based on video. The Milan player never returned to the “Squadra Azzurra.”

However, this didn’t prevent him from becoming a World Cup silver medalist thanks to Roberto Baggio. The 1993 World Player of the Year would eventually score 5 out of 6 goals for the Italian national team in the playoffs and lead his team to the final. There, he missed at the decisive moment during the post-match penalty shootout, handing the gold to Brazil.

Enrique failed to win World Cup medals. So his young footballers on the fields of Qatar are fighting both for themselves and for their coach.