At this moment, Spain’s final friendly of their World Cup run up isn’t even over – it’s something like 3-0 in the 57th at the moment. The score or what have you is an afterthought, as is any debate over the most gifted team in South Africa. The story is the second goal, scored against Poland, which nine months from now will have spawned a David Silva generation of babies to mate with Andres Iniesta’s generation. (Well down the line – this is a family show, after all.)

To summarize: Spain is technically on another planet – we’ll call this Planet España, where Xavi is Chief Intelligence Officer, Andres Iniesta the Lord Mayor of the Interior, David Villa the Secretary of Scoring and David Silva the jack of all three. That doesn’t necessarily make them the best team, but shame on you if you miss a second of Spain this World Cup – the Minister of Defense, Carles Puyol, might just show up at your crib and beat you down with his club.