It could not be. The Brazilian Olympic team won a match and a final that could have lost it.
The sad conclusion is that Spain has remained at the gates, and it is Olympic silver. Now it may sound like disappointment, but in time it will sound like the glory of being a medalist in the Olympics. And a silver medalist.
And how will the match be remembered? A final is that match that must be won, that is not played, that is won … but an Olympic final is something else, it is eternal because none of the protagonists will play it again.
Spain played that final and we will remember it that way. Before that future memory, today we would have to say that Spain, once again, and there are many already, had a game at 120 minutes with half the team made up of players who after a long season had to face a Eurocup with more matches with an extension of the desired ones. I could not say if for those 120 minutes or for the players ‘inherited’ from the Euro, it is what makes this Olympic team somehow seem like an extension of the absolute of Luis Enrique, and not only for these two concepts.
Some details, already known, seem to contribute to this continuation between teams. On the one hand, the defensive failures that gave the victory to the ‘Canarinha’ this Saturday at the Games. On the other hand, they are games that do not close, and the clearest example are those two posts that with the match tied were able to decide the final duel. And, finally, there is something that cannot be ignored, and it is the usual lack of a goal in the national team.
We may now believe that this is how the match will be remembered, but no, it will not. The final of the Tokyo Games between Spain and Brazil will be remembered for the Olympic achievement, nobody will take away the glory from this team, whose members enjoyed the delivery of the medals without taking them off their necks, enjoying them.
Nobody will take away from Mikel Oyarzabal the glory of the scored goal, a magnificent goal to remember. And no one will take away from Luis de la Fuente the pride of the enormous work he has done leading his team to success once again.
It could not be, but the names of these players will shine in silver letters in the annals of Olympic glory forever.
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