He said, “Fine, I’ll wear them myself!”
Spain 0–0 Portugal.
Five minutes left….
Luis put me on as a striker. Of course, I’m not really a striker. When Havertz was injured early last year, and I had two weeks of people online telling me that I should play up front, I just laughed. _Me? Up front?_ At Dortmund, I played a few games at centre-back! But since it has worked so well at Arsenal, Luis also started playing me there, and honestly, I love it. I’m not fast, but I see the game as a whole. Even before I started playing there, I thought a lot about how the striker should move.
When Ferran got the ball outside the box, I saw a space open up at the heart of their defence. I ran in behind. The ball was perfect.
_Don’t touch it, just finish_.
Left foot.
_Gol._
Somewhere in the stands, a middle-aged man with grey hair and ugly socks was going crazy.
After that game, I got the best present I could have imagined: My wife and my son. Lola had flown for 12 hours with him just to be there with me.
“MARCOOOOOO!!!”
I held him in my arms. But I noticed right away.
He was a lot heavier.
His cheeks were chubbier.
I was only gone for one month, and he was not the same boy as before. That was really tough for me. And that’s why the Belgium game was so special. Scoring another late winner was crazy enough, but to do it in front of my family? After that injury? It felt like a movie where I had no say in the story, I only got a role to play, and I’m so grateful that this was the one that fell to me.
When I met Lola and Marco at the hotel afterwards, we kissed and we cried. We had no words. That goal was for her. Without her support during this time, I would have been watching the game from the sofa in London.
My dad was there, too. The first thing he did was to pull up his trouser legs and laugh.
“These socks scored two goals!!”
He was wearing them every game, and we were playing every four days. I just hope he’s got more than one pair.
By that point, we were very hard to beat. Maybe we were not the best team at the World Cup, but we felt that there was nobody better than us, either. Not even France. Everyone thought they would beat us, and we actually talked about it at dinner. For sure, they have superstars everywhere, incredible players, but we all grew up with the same system and culture, and we understand football in the same way. To score against us, you need the ball. And taking the ball off Spain is very, very hard.
The best part about the final was that we forgot it was a final. We just played it. Our young guys, they are so confident that they’re almost disconnected from reality. I really admire it. They live in their own world where the pressure is just talk, and the game is a _game_, as if they are still kids. That is the best way to play.
On the bench, I was so present. All I saw was 11 versus 11. Pressure, angles, movements. When I came on, I simply felt honoured. My dad always said, “Pressure is a privilege.” You can lose, but don’t let it be due to fear.
And I was close. _So close_.
Man..................
That header. I’ve already spent hours talking to my dad about it. You see, the problem was that I didn’t move my feet fast enough, so I could not connect with the ball as well as I wanted. The moment I headed it, something felt off. _Argh!_
“You have to score that.”
I still hear it everywhere. Bars. Restaurants. On the streets. Even my family keeps reminding me.
“A Merino doesn’t miss that.”
“Yes, Grandma, I _know._”
“But darling, how could you not score?”
_ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH_.
Maybe Dad forgot to wear the socks.
Anyway, I felt we’d get more chances. When they put on a third centre-back, I knew I was causing trouble. You need your striker to stretch the defence so that there’s space for the midfielders to run into, and when I saw Pedro Porro about to cross it, I just attacked the box. I drew three players with me, and Ferran had so much space.
1–0.
I thought, _That’s it_.
Huge mistake. It’s so hard to stop the brain from relaxing. We had been in total control, and all of a sudden Argentina were pinning us back. The ball felt heavier. We couldn’t clear it. We couldn’t keep it, even with one man more.
Fortunately, we knew how to suffer. At one point, Messi lined up to shoot just outside the box, and I was like, _No, not him._
I moved forward to close him down, one metre away.
He hit it hard.
BANG. Right in my face.
I went down like I’d been shot, which I had.
I got hit so hard that I was actually blind in one eye for the rest of the match. For a moment, I was really worried. But when the whistle went, I just felt this surge of relief, because we hadn’t messed it up. And then this image appeared in my mind.
Me as a kid, with a ball.
No text, no poetry, just that image. I could see the kid tell his mom that, one day, he would win the World Cup. Now, that little kid was running around on a pitch in New Jersey, as a world champion.
It was difficult, yes. But not impossible.
My family came down from the stands to hug me. And then I remember going to the dressing room and stealing some stuff from the celebrations. A few packs of lomo and serrano ham. Some bread, some snacks. About 15 cans of beer. I stuffed it all in a bag and brought it for my family, and then we gathered in a circle on the pitch and had a little picnic. It’s a tradition we often have, me and my wife, after a victory.
We like the park. This time, we had the MetLife.
I can still taste that moment. I remember looking around at the Spanish fans in the stands, so happy. Cucurella was probably calling his tattoo artist. Luis was being hugged by everyone. Less than six months earlier, a PowerPoint had told me this could never happen. I looked at the people I love, and I thought, _I cannot ask any more of life_.
Still today, I can’t fully believe that it happened.
Really, I can only say thank you.
To Dad, for his mentorship, and the lucky socks.
To Mom, for letting me dream.
To Marco, for being the centre of my universe.
And to Lola, for helping me up the stairs.
You never let me fall.
— Mikel