The Javits Center is a giant convention center. It is in Hudson Yards, west of Manhattan, right by the river. FIFA has turned it into a kind of operations center that serves for everything. They set up a show with former footballers where people can take photos with a replica of the World Cup or, like this Friday, the finalist teams hold their press conferences before the Sunday match.
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FIFA has even changed that in this World Cup. Press conferences are no longer the day before. They are two days before so that teams have more rest time, also considering that the ball starts rolling at 3:00 p.m.
Up to here came Rodri, the captain, and Luis de la Fuente, the coach. The midfielder spoke with impressive calm, as if they were in the middle of any mission and not on the doorstep of the second world title, almost nothing, for Spain.
The coach, for his part, appeared calm despite the 400 journalists in front of him, and told a little-known anecdote when asked about Leo Messi: “I’m going to tell you something very funny. I met Messi while I was a coach at Sevilla, in the Juvenil División de Honor. We went to play against Barça and I assigned him a man-marking. At minute 70, the one marking him got a yellow card. I changed him, put another one, and in 15 minutes, Leo scored four goals against us. So tomorrow [Sunday] there will be no man-marking,” he said to the surprise of everyone.
He spoke, as he always does, with brutal respect for Argentina. “It is a brutal team, led by a friend of mine. Admiration, admiration, and admiration is what I feel for this Argentine team.”
Maybe he was wrong, though, in another of his phrases. “I would sign to reach the final of a world championship every year and lose it,” referring to the fact that winning is not always easy, and that the goal has to be “to be fighting to win.”
Nervous Luis de la Fuente before the final? “I’m quite nervous because we came and we leave by helicopter, but other than that, nothing makes me nervous,” he joked, and indeed. To get to the Javits Center from New Jersey, where they are concentrated, the traffic is wild, it takes more than an hour by car, so FIFA put them on a helicopter and in less than 10 minutes they were in Manhattan. With nervous laughter, of course, but in Manhattan. On Sunday they will go by bus to the stadium.
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By the way, Lamine and Pedro Porro are fit to play. That’s what the coach said.
