Carvajal finishes with the armband as Spain thrash Georgia

Spain thrashed Georgia 7-1 on Friday evening, a comfortable win in the most uncomfortable of games for all the players involved. After arriving in Tbilisi to discover that the federation had left their boots behind in Madrid, leading to a pointless training session on Thursday, the Spain players then took to the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena pitch on Friday under a torrential downpour.

Despite the frustrating circumstances, La Roja set about their business and quickly put a poor Georgia side to the sword. Dani Carvajal was the only Real Madrid player in the starting XI and he created the first chance of the match, continuing his good form from the first four weeks of the LaLiga season.

The right-back wasn’t the captain of Spain in this game, as Álvaro Morata was initially wearing the armband, and the striker opened the scoring in the 22nd minute, before an own goal, a Dani Olmo strike and another Morata goal made it 4-0 at the break.

Carvajal was absolutely solid in that first half and even produced a viral moment when he completed an auto pase around Georgia star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

Although Giorgi Chakvetadze pulled one back for Georgia straight after half-time, helped in large part by an Unai Simón howler, Spain quickly reasserted their dominance as Morata completed his hat-trick and as Nico Williams produced an impressive individual goal to make it 6-1.

While Carvajal wasn’t involved in either of these goals, he was all the while marshalling the right side of the pitch and was soon joined by a club teammate.

No goal for Joselu, but a historic dummy

In the 72nd minute, hat-trick hero Morata was replaced by Joselu, with the score at 6-1 at that point and with the armband going to Carvajal, who played all 90 minutes.

Unfortunately for Joselu, the centre-forward couldn’t join in Spain’s goal fest. He came into this game with a rate of one goal every 45 minutes for Spain, but his 18 minutes in Tbilisi weren’t enough to add to that, even if he did test Giorgi Mamardashvili, the Georgia goalkeeper who also plays for Valencia.

However, Joselu did help make some history. Two minutes after Joselu came on, Lamine Yamal became the youngest ever scorer for the Spanish national team at 16 years and 57 days of age. It won’t go down as an assist, but the goal is made possible in large part thanks to a dummy from Joselu on a low Nico Williams cross. That allowed the ball to run to the Barça teenager, who did the rest.

All in all, it was a good night’s work for Carvajal and Joselu, even if neither was a main protagonist.

Meanwhile, Kepa Arrizabalaga watched it all from the bench, including the poor play from Unai Simón on the Georgia goal that may give the Basque goalkeeper hope at earning more minutes under De La Fuente.