At 116th minute of the game between Holland and Spain, Fabregas slipped a pass to Iniesta who slotted the ball home for Spain’s maiden title. What followed the goal were scenes of madness, laughter , joy and what not but in those few seconds whole of Spain also remembered the late Dani Jarque.
Moments after his extra-time goal gave Spain a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands in Sunday’s final, Iniesta took off his blue Spain jersey to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the words, “Dani Jarque: siempre con nosotros” -
“Dani Jarque: always with us.”
Dani Jarque
Dani Jarque was a former Espanyol player who collapsed and died at the age of 26 on a preseason tour of Italy last year, one month after being named captain of Espanyol. Iniesta and Jarque were teammates on Spain’s under-17, under-19, under-20 and under-21 teams.
“I wanted to carry Dani with me,”
Iniesta said after picking up his man of the match award. Iniesta was shown a yellow card for removing his shirt but that is a small price to pay tribute to a friend. He also added:
“We wanted to pay tribute to him and we thought it was the best opportunity to do so.”
Such is his reserved nature that even after scoring the winner in the Final Iniesta was keen to get out of the limelight and said that it was excellent team work that won them the cup. But his colleagues would not allow that. “We love you Andres, we’re the world champions!” chanted Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol and Cesc Fabregas having pursued Iniesta to the press room.
