Mikel Merino Reflects on Spain's World Cup Opener

The morning after felt heavy. Not quite a funeral, but close enough for Mikel Merino to reach for the word “mourning” – and then stick with it, even when the room bristled at the choice.

“No one died, it’s not a mourning exactly, but at times defeats can feel like that,” the Arsenal midfielder said. Only this wasn’t even a defeat. It was a 0-0 draw with Cape Verde in Spain’s World Cup opener, a scoreline that looked harmless on paper but cut deep inside the camp.

This was not the grand entrance they had imagined. Not for a team that has grown up on tales of 2010.

A Spanish inquisition in Tennessee

By 11am the next day, almost everyone was out on the training pitch at Spain’s base in Tennessee, trying to run off the frustration. Almost everyone. Merino was the exception, sent to face the press while the rest of the squad stretched and sweated in the sun.

Seven long desks of journalists in front of him. A low murmur of discontent outside. Questions loaded with doubt. All part of the job, he shrugged.

“If there’s one thing that’s not good for us, it is for there to be panic,” he said. So he sat there for half an hour, fielding questions with a calm that Spain badly needed to project, turning over the result, the mood, the noise. He even reached back to the summer that shaped a generation.

He was 14 when Spain lost their first game at the 2010 World Cup and went on to win the whole thing. He remembers the criticism. He remembers the response. That memory is now a reference point, not a fairy tale.

“Like every game that doesn’t go as you’d like, every player lives with that mourning,” he said. “Some like to watch the game back straight away, some like to disconnect and think about other things instead. You have to swallow the disappointment. We have to recover as soon as we can. Luis [de la Fuente] always says that it’s about trying to be better tomorrow, even if you’ve won. We’re always self-critical.”

He is not one for posting messages to calm the public. “Personally, I am not one to send messages [to fans]; I think the best message is the next game, turning it around with a win.”

Family, ego and the “circus”

Still, messages slipped through in what he said. Spain have been talking about “family” since they gathered, but the word only really means something when the pressure arrives.

“It is easy to talk of ‘family’ but when things don’t go well, when they are difficult, is when you truly see that ‘family’ – and I see unity, enthusiasm and a will to play well,” Merino said.

Then came a more honest look at what it means to assemble a national team from club stars who are used to being the centre of everything.

“It is important to have ego; as a footballer, with all the criticism from outside you need it to feel good on the pitch. But you also need the humility to know that this belongs to everyone. Players come to the national team because they are important [at their clubs] and find a new reality where only a few can play.

“That’s what the word ‘family’ is. We have to be united, support each other in every moment. You can be annoyed, angry, but that energy has to be positive.”

The anger, he admitted, can eat away at you. His “mourning” line was seized on quickly and thrown back at him. He didn’t back away.

“Maybe I didn’t express myself well,” he started, then doubled down. “It was an attempt at a metaphor, a comparison. You’re so competitive that when it doesn’t go well, sometimes you go home and don’t even want to talk to your family. That’s why I say it’s like a mourning. Everyone deals with it differently. I like to face it and watch [games back] as soon as possible but that doesn’t mean it’s the best approach for everyone.”

There is another layer to all this: the expanded World Cup format. More teams, more days, more time to stew.

“What you want after a bad game is to play again straight away to get the bad taste out of your mouth. The risk [of the expanded World Cup] is you have lots of time to go over it; it’s a mental challenge to deal with that, evade all that and be as free as you can mentally.”

And all of it unfolds in public.

“That’s a reality; it’s part of the business, the reason we earn what we earn, why football is so big, so important: because you’re here to cover it, to create stories through which we explain things to fans,” Merino said, glancing around the room. “There are players who like it more, or like it less, but it’s part of the ‘circus’ and we have to accept it and live with it.”

Four or five hours to reset

Merino knows himself well enough now to understand how he processes nights like Atlanta.

“Everyone handles these moments their own personal way. I’m one of those that finds it hard to swallow a bad result but with time I’ve realised that it is best to [confront it] and start trying to turn it around as soon as possible. Four, five hours and you realise that this [World Cup] has just started, that there is time to fix it.”

Once that realisation lands, the focus shifts from the self to the squad.

“Then you can focus on the group, on what helps them. Put a hand on the shoulder of whoever is hurt because they didn’t play, or missed a chance. Or know who needs space for that mourning.”

Inside the camp, there was at least a small release when Saudi Arabia and Uruguay drew, levelling the group again and dulling the immediate damage of Spain’s own stalemate. Merino did not hide the sense of relief.

He talked about feeling as if they “start over”. The table says they do.

“I like to see the positive side,” he said. “The last world champion started by losing to Saudi Arabia. In 2010 Spain lost the first game and there was lots of criticism and they turned it around; that is an example to follow from people who were idols. I often take inspiration from athletes who have lived my dreams before I did. That generation means so much for this one: we want to emulate them.”

The mourning, then, has a purpose. It hurts, it lingers, but it sharpens. Spain have time to turn a bleak opening chapter into something else entirely. The question now is whether this “family” can live up to the standard of the idols they grew up watching.