Enrique says Spain have no plans to avoid Brazil

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

Spain are top of the group and victory against Japan tonight would guarantee progress as group winners, but they also know a point would see them through to the last 16 and avoid Brazil in the quarter-final

"We have reflected on it," said Enrique. "But from a professional point of view, imagine that we speculate. 'Okay, we want to be second, that's in our interests.' We get to the 95th minute and in both games it's 0-0, 0-0, [thinking:] 'Everything's going great.' And then Costa Rica go and score and Japan score. And in 15 seconds you're out because you have been speculating for 90 minutes. Or the other way round: Germany are winning 5-0 and we're drawing and that will do and then Japan score and you're out.

"When you're a very good team and you want to play seven games, you want to be first. We play the team that's second in Group F, right? And then in the quarter-final in theory it's Brazil. Okay, great. We play...