Revealed: The 'magic DVD' which saved Iniesta and inspired Spain's World Cup triumph

As the final pieces of the qualifying jigsaw are put into place this coming week, the runners and riders for next year's World Cup spectacular in Rio are about to become apparent.

One side which can already be placed firmly in the 'favourites' category are the all-conquering defending champions Spain.

Not only did they lift football's greatest prize back in South Africa in 2010 but, having also won Euro 2008 and Euro 2012, created history by being the first side to win a hat-trick of consecutive major tournaments.

Scottish Mail on Sunday Euroview columnist GRAHAM HUNTER was with La Roja on every step of their incredible journey and, in his remarkable new book, reveals just what it took for the Spaniards to conquer Europe and the world. In this exclusive extract, he outlines the public and private traumas which Andres Iniesta, the man whose goal won the World Cup, suffered before destiny called one night in Soccer City...

Glory: Spain's Andres Iniesta scores the winner in 2010 World Cup final

As Captain Guillermo Gomez-Paratcha gets Spain's Airbus 340/600 airborne, destination Johannesburg, Andres Iniesta knows he is extremely fortunate to be on the flight to South Africa.

This has been the most soul-destroying year of his life. A thigh injury first sustained 13 months before the World Cup has since flared up on four further occasions. In the final third of Barcelona's league season, he has played approximately 30 minutes of football. With this track record, 99 per cent of footballers simply wouldn't have been selected for the tournament.

This part of his story is already a matter of record - and, in Spain, of public debate. The hidden story, which only a select few staff and players on the plane currently know, is that spiritually and psychologically Iniesta has been in pieces. While all of Spain has been praying he'll be fit in time, a darker question has long been tormenting Iniesta's mind: might he be fit in body, but shattered in spirit and bereft of self-belief?

In his carry-on luggage, Iniesta has a DVD which will turn out to be a thing of magic. This plastic disc will ultimately be what success or failure for Spain in the World Cup turns on. It's just that nobody knows it yet. The entire problem has its roots in Paris and the Champions League Final of 2006. Central to the plot are two Dutchmen, Frank Rijkaard and Mark van Bommel. Before the story is resolved, the latter will again inflict pain on Iniesta.

Matchwinner: Spain feared Iniesta would not be fit for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010

Rijkaard doesn't pick Iniesta for the Paris final against Arsenal, trusting the destructive Van Bommel ahead of the creative La Masia graduate. Barcelona win largely thanks to Iniesta's inspired performance, having come on at the break with the Cesc Fabregas-inspired Gunners leading 1-0.

Iniesta is champion of Europe, but describes the pain of not starting as 'the worst moment of my life'. Ten days before his next Champions League final, against Manchester United in Rome, he suffers a two-centimetre tear in his thigh while drawing 3-3 against Villarreal. Three years on from the pain of Paris, Iniesta will not, under any circumstances, contemplate missing a chance to play 90 minutes and take destiny in his own hands.

Iniesta is 60 per cent fit and his thigh muscle so precariously held together by tiny fibres that club medics order him not to shoot at goal in order to protect against more serious damage. Iniesta is sublime that night, United are defeated 2-0 and the lingering soreness of Paris erased. But the agony of Rome is quite different and much more dangerous.



Not only does he lose a huge part of season 2009/10 because of the same injury repeatedly returning, it corrodes his confidence.

Tribute: Iniesta celebrates scoring with the words 'Dani Jarque, always with us' written on his undershirt

Late in the summer of 2009, Iniesta is struck a devastating blow. His great friend Dani Jarque collapses and dies during Espanyol's pre-season training camp. The Barcelona genius and the Espanyol captain grew up together within the Spanish federation's categorías inferiores youth system and Jarque's sudden death precipitates a deep personal crisis. As he loses confidence in his body and ability as a footballer, now Iniesta is also examining questions of mortality and faith.

Andres Iniesta: 'I'd managed to create, let's say, an image of an Andres Iniesta who played at quite a good level and the fact that I suddenly couldn't perform like that really overshadowed my life. I got to the stage where I no longer had confidence in myself. I'd lost certainty that I could still do the things I'd always done - it was very tough. I'm pretty sure people outside the club didn't realise how bad it got.'

Twice between December 2009 and March 2010 he breaks down, but by mid-April, he's training flat out. Then comes what feels like total disaster. On Tuesday, April 13, seven days before the first leg of the Champions League semi-final which Barcelona lose to Inter, and two months before Spain's World Cup kick-off, Iniesta is completing a shooting drill when his right thigh rips again. Even before momentum takes him off the pitch, he's already in tears.



Tragic: Daniel Jarque died during Espanyol's per-season training camp in 2009

While the drill continues, he staggers towards to the corner of Barcelona's Joan Gamper training ground and the physios, trotting over, see his diminutive frame wracked with sobs.

'That day was a killer, soul-destroying,' he remembers. Iniesta misses all but four minutes of the remainder of the league season, his fragile confidence once again in tatters. There's now a firm chance he won't make the plane to South Africa.

Post World Cup, (Spain coach) Vicente del Bosque underlines how great the dilemma was. 'Muscular injuries can get right into your psyche,' he says. 'In theory, you're healed but, in your mind, you know whether you are right or not. If not, it can be confusing and damaging.'

Spain's doctor, Oscar Celadas, goes further: 'Before the squad list for the World Cup was made public, Andres was one of our guys who had had serious problems and there was a really big decision to be taken.'

Naming Iniesta in the provisional squad becomes a gamble based on medical projections, not current fitness, but del Bosque is certain that the midfielder's presence is going to be of transcendental importance. So Iniesta is on the flight.

Triumph: Iniesta lifts the World Cup trophy

The fact that he has once again aggravated his injury when del Bosque dared to play him in the World Cup warm-up win over Poland is not the only problem he has carried on board. Physically he is healing, psychologically he is not. After dozing for the first half hour of the flight, he unzips his hand luggage, reaches for his personal computer and tries to draw strength and inspiration from the DVD which has been put together to save his World Cup.

When Iniesta presses 'play' he sees the work of Emili Ricart. A physio at FC Barcelona, Ricart handles the recuperation and rehabilitation of that club's great stars post-injury.

Fortunately his is a holistic approach. He knows that repairing the muscle, however long it takes, isn't always sufficient. If the injury has done damage to confidence and psyche, then physical rehabilitation will not come close to completing the healing. 'Things had reached a stage where Andrés felt like this was a problem which was never going away - he was sinking,' Ricart recalls.

Inspiration: Iniesta was shown a video, including scenes from Fernando Alonso's recovery from serious injury



The first images Iniesta sees are of Manel Estiarte, Pep Guardiola's right-hand man at Barcelona for the previous two years. The footage is from his former existence, as the Lionel Messi of water polo, one of the greatest ever players in a sport hugely popular in Spain. The team he led failed to win gold at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, conceding a winning advantage over Italy in the final with nine seconds left, then losing in extra-time.

It was a crushing defeat for a Catalan superstar at his home town Olympics, provoking tears from a tough guy. The DVD jumps forward four years and Estiarte has fought back to win gold with Spain at the Atlanta Olympics.

Next, is footage of Fernando Alonso's 150mph crash at Interlagos in 2003, his car disintegrating and the Spaniard being stretchered off the track. But that cuts to the Spaniard driving to his first Formula 1 world title in 2005, becoming the youngest champion ever and celebrating madly on the podium in Brazil, the scene of his terrible crash two years previously.

Then there is Rafa Nadal beating Roger Federer to win a four-and-a-half-hour, five-set epic final at the 2009 Australian Open. The Spaniard's first hard court title leaves Federer in tears, unable to complete his loser's speech. The images flash forward to Federer fighting back to win the French Open later that year, becoming the sixth man to win grand slam titles on all three surfaces.

Emotional: Roger Federer (left) was in tears as he beat Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open in 2009

Finally there is Iniesta himself, down and out during that match against Villarreal in 2009, holding his thigh muscle, his face betraying the agony of the injury and the knowledge of its likely consequences.

The counterpoint? When he buries the ball into the top corner of the Chelsea net, stripping off his Barcelona top and running like crazy towards the corner flag.

Goal celebrations? Corner flags? Perhaps there is more of that to come.



July 11, 2010. Soccer City, Johannesburg. Holland v Spain. World Cup final



The climax of the story is near but now the chief protagonist comes close to leaving the stage.

Iniesta thought he wasn't going to make it to this tournament. Once here, injury very nearly robbed him of a chance to play. Now, it very nearly all slips away from him at the last moment, due to the most uncharacteristic loss of one of the most even tempers in football.

Van Bommel has fouled consistently and now goes over the ball to plant his studs on Iniesta's ankle. No foul is given. As the play moves away, Iniesta gets up and checks van Bommel, knee to thigh.

Hard man: Andres Iniesta (left) was repeatedly caught by Mark van Bommel during the World Cup final

Andres Iniesta: 'I was just being fouled for 80 minutes. Perhaps the referee, if he wanted to interpret it differently then maybe he could have sent me off. These things happen in football.'

Howard Webb speaks to Iniesta, but that is all. The decision - which makes sense in the context of what has been allowed to pass that night - changes Iniesta's life and football history.

With just over four minutes left in extra-time, Jesus Navas, in a right wing-back position, sets off with a skip and a hop down the touchline. His inside pass to Iniesta, centre pitch, is shuttled on to Fabregas, who supplies Fernando Torres out wide.

He sees the run Iniesta has made forward - the little midfielder is at the far right-hand edge of the box. However, Torres slightly underhits the crossfield ball. Rafael van der Vaart is filling in for Johnny Heitinga at centre-half. As he attempts to clear, he slips and the ball is available on the edge of Holland's penalty area.

Fabregas has anticipated and takes a touch before cushioning a pass to Iniesta. Van der Vaart should be in midfield, marking Iniesta. Instead he is in defence, covering for Heitinga, sent off for a foul on... Iniesta. There is one name cropping up again and again and again.

Champions: Spain celebrate winning the World Cup, beating Holland in the final in South Africa

Andres Iniesta: 'In that moment, we were alone, the ball and I. I could hear nothing. As far as I was concerned, the whole stadium had fallen silent. I waited for the Isaac Newton effect, for gravity to make the ball drop and the second I had it at my foot, I knew it was going in, I just knew it. It had all come down to this moment. I knew exactly how to control it and where to put it: as hard as I could across (Dutch goalkeeper Maarten) Stekelenburg, so that he had no time to react.'

Back in Fuentealbilla, where Iniesta was born, his dad José Antonio is watching at home, alone. His fear of flying is such that he took the train from Barcelona to Vienna for the Euro 2008 final and he often misses his son's biggest games. In such circumstances, he prefers to watch in peace and quiet.

When his son scores, Jose Antonio turns off the television immediately. He cannot bear the tension of the next couple of minutes.

Iniesta's mother, María Francisca Lujan, meantime, is equally stressed down at Bar Lujan, in the centre of town, where Grandad Iniesta was the landlord for 35 years. On retirement, he converted every newspaper cutting he saved about his grandson into an archive which covers every millimetre of wall space.

On the night of Iniesta's final, it is packed, like most bars in Spain, and María Francisca is so uptight that she goes outside to seek fresh air and is still out there when her son scores his historic goal.

Bond: Fernando Torres and Iniesta

She misses him racing away to the left-hand corner flag, just as he had done at Stamford Bridge - the footage he saw on the DVD as the aeroplane took him from Spain to South Africa. Now he is tearing off his Spain shirt so that the world can see his T-shirt: 'Dani Jarque, always with us.' Now he is submerged.

At the far end of the pitch, Iker Casillas sets off on a run, arms outstretched. As emotion over-rides adrenaline, he collapses to his knees and tears overtake him.

Del Bosque is standing motionless, alone. He is in the perspex dugout, like a guy waiting for a bus to take him home to Salamanca after a long day at work. This night has been so mad that not until Webb blows the whistle will he relax. He begins to urge everyone else to stop celebrating, calm down and pay attention!

Four minutes later, that whistle sounds.

Fireworks light up the sky above Fuentealbilla. Only then does Jose Antonio Iniesta know for sure that his son has won the World Cup for Spain.

At home, in Barcelona, Iniesta has a little treasure trove of golden memories from his career: medals, shirts, photos, boots, newspaper clippings. His most treasured memento will be the La Roja shirt in which he scored the World Cup-winning goal.

It is a while since he has sorted through his personal museum and as he archives this latest artifact, he chances upon another, from nine years ago.

Iniesta and Torres made their debut together in the categorías inferiores back in 2000 in a win over Belgium. The following summer they led the Rojita side sent to win the FIFA Under 17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago. Already Under 16 European champions, they journeyed to the Caribbean with high hopes, but failed to qualify from a group containing Oman and Burkina Faso.

Parting at the end of a disastrous tournament, Iniesta and Torres swapped shirts, each signing one with a message for the other.

Now, returning as king of the world, having scored from a move which Torres initiates in Soccer City, Iniesta unfolds the No 9 shirt his friend signed for him all those years ago.

Torres' handwriting, even in magic marker, is clear to read: 'Don't worry. Our World Cup is still to come.'

It just has.



'Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja's Historic Treble' by Graham Hunter is available now in hardback and as an ebook by BackPage Press



