Spain’s captain and goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, received a little more attention from the world press than he had bargained for during the South Africa World Cup. Apart from all the usual praise for his goalkeeping excellence and his leadership skills as team captain, his private life has become the focus of attention the world over. It was no secret before the tournament started that his girlfriend was Sara Carbonero, one of team of sports reporters with Telecinco, the channel that televised much of the competition. Neither was it a surprise that in South Africa she took on her usual role as the reporter on the sidelines who interviews the players after the match.

On June 16th after Spain lost their opening World Cup match against Switzerland, the brief, professional interview between Casillas and Carbonero in which she asked him what went wrong was watched by millions on Youtube. The next day images from the interview were published on the front page of The Times with the headline “Goalie’s girlfriend starts the Spanish inquisition”. The article implied that the Spanish fans blamed Sara Carbonero for distracting Casillas when Switzerland scored. This weak argument was criticised from all sides, and especially from across the Atlantic by The New York Times.

Since then the global attention has led to debate back here in Spain, where the president of the Madrid press association criticised Telecinco for putting Carbonero just behind Casillas’s goal, although the channel pointed out that reporters were given their position by FIFA. Meanwhile Iker and Sara got on with their respective jobs as professionally as they could.

The latest criticism against The Times’ article came this week in the form of a letter to the editor written by Miriam González, the Spanish lawyer wife of Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. She suggested that now that Spain had won the World Cup and that Casillas had demonstrated he is an outstanding goalkeeper it was time for the newspaper to “eat humble pie”. González stated that blaming Sara for “Spain’s initial lacklustre performance when she was simply doing her job” was not “worthy of a newspaper that should treat women for who they are and not simply for what their male partners do”. The Times editor defended the article adding: “We are not over fond of humble pie but if you, Sara Carbonero or Iker Casillas are ever passing, please do drop by for a slice of tortilla.”

Casillas admitted that the media attention given to their relationship had not made life easy for Sara in South Africa. However he had the last say while being interviewed live by Sara after Sunday’s final. Rather than answering Sara’s questions about the game, the euphoric Spanish captain planted a kiss on his girlfriend’s lips in front of the cameras.