That's the way it goes: one day you win a World Cup; the next day you lose one. That is effectively what has happened to Spain.
On August 20 their women's team lifted the World Cup in Australia and within about 48 hours they had lost the 2030 men's tournament, or more accurately their chances of staging it.
Spain deserves a World Cup. It has not staged the tournament for 41 years. It has an excellent network of rail and road links. It has a deserved reputation for great hospitality and it has in the Santiago Bernabeu, The Civitas Metropolitano, San Mames in Bilbao and (in two years time) the new Camp Nou four of the best stadiums in Europe. There are plenty of other good stadia beyond that quartet and it's a proper football country.
What a shame then that its chances have been done potentially irreparable damage by the refusal of its football federation to properly deal with the misconduct of its president Luis Rubiales.
The currently FIFA-suspended head of the Spanish Federation might even have seen off some of those first calls for him to resign had he issued an immediate 'no ifs and no buts' apology on the morning he flew back with the squad to Spain for his grotesque crotch-grabbing at the final and his wholly inappropriate and power-abusing kiss on the lips of Spain international Jenni Hermoso.
Instead, having already called his critics 'idiots' in a radio interview, he gave one of those: 'If I have offended anyone then I have no alternative but to apologise' apologies and it was no surprise when it was not accepted.
He also called an emergency meeting of the organisation he arguably still controls. Of the 140 members only half showed up but federation staff were told to file into the assembly room most under the impression they would be watching him resign, only for him the to shout five times: 'I will not resign'.
Spain's Sports minister Victor Francos touched on the nation's greater long term problem because of the scandal when he said: 'I don't like to deceive people, I am worried.
'A fortnight ago we were in a better position for the 2030 World Cup than we are now. Spanish sport and football is not what we have been seeing these days.'
He promised a change in Spanish football adding: 'from January 1 2024, all Spanish federations will have to have 40% of their staff made up of women.'
But by then it had all ready become apparent that the Spanish government was unable to kick-out Rubiales. They were totally reliant on the courts to investigate him first, only then could they suspend him, and subsequently replace him if he was found guilty of wrongdoing.
With Rubiales refusing to resign and going on the attack provoking FIFA to not only suspend him but to forbid him to contact or put pressure on Hermoso, it was clear that it was going to be down to the Spanish Football Federation to take a stand. And they have chosen not to.
When they did finally act to insist Rubiales resign from his post with immediate effect after what they called his 'unacceptable behavior having caused grave harm to the image of Spanish football', over a week had passed since the original incidents.
Why did it take so long? Because the way the federation is structured so many of its component parts depend on the Federation President for their jobs and their subsidies – too many for them they found it impossible to take an independent stand for the better of Spanish football.
As it was, Rubiales had axed all of his vice-presidents bar the man most loyal to him, Pedro Rocha. He did that knowing he was going to be suspended – this ensured that his man would take over as caretaker boss.
At time of writing the Spanish referees chief Luis Medina had still not condemned Rubiales' behavior, he was appointed by Rubiales when he took the presidency in 2018. That's the way it works.
Rubiales' other trick in the immediate aftermath of the storm that followed his behavior at the final was for another of his right-hand men Andreu Camps to request that UEFA put pressure on the Spanish Football Federation threatening to kick them out of European competition because of government interference regards who runs the Federation.
The reaction in Spain to that accusation – aside from the indignation at the attempt to sabotage Spanish clubs (anything to save Rubiales) - was to point out that if anything, the Spanish government had not interfered enough in the running of the federation. There was a back catalogue of scandals, many of them of sufficient scale to suggest Rubiales should have been removed.
And if those scandals have, in the main, be kept out of the global spotlight a sensational interview given by Rubiales' uncle on Wednesday sprayed them all over the internet once.
Juan Rubiales became chief of staff to his nephew Luis Rubiales in May 2018 but the nephew sacked the uncle two years later over differences in the way the job should be done.
Uncle Rubiales subsequently reported the alleged irregularities of his nephew's management of the federation but nothing was ever done.
This week he went back over the perceived misdemeanours in a series of interviews – one with El Confidencial who in 2022 published the 'Supercopa Files', an investigation into the way Rubiales had taken the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia for €40million a season.
In the jaw-dropping interview with them he claims his nephew asked him to take money out of the federation and give it to his father. He refused and he claims this happened two days before he was fired.
'He is a person with a tendency to cowardice,' he told El Confidencial.
'He is a cowardly man. That's why, if you see him, he's always surrounded by a lot of people. That's why he always holds dinners at his house until the early hours of the morning, surrounded by his people.
'What happens is that, when he puts on his boss's hat, of course, he feels he's the best. In the Federation, already in the first months of his presidency, they started to call him Kennedy because the guy thought he was Kennedy. And based on that belief he treated people: with disrespect, with contempt and with arrogance.'
In among such damning character assessments Rubiales' uncle also made accusations of a trip to New York paid for by the Federation on the basis that it was business when it was purely pleasure. A Federation party with 'young women invited'. And the illegal recording of phone messages and the bullying of former Sports Secretary Irene Lozano to the extent that he was asked to leave her office.
Rubiales denies all these claims but his uncle repeated them during his round of interviews this week claiming it was time for the behaviour to be revealed for everyone's benefit.
It was an exercise in the airing of dirty laundry that will waft into the offices of FIFA and UEFA because it suggests a level of unchecked corruption running through the Spanish Football Federation.
The only way forward for them now is to bring forward elections currently scheduled for after next year's Olympics and move forward under a new leader regardless of the outcome of the various investigations that are open on Rubiales.
But there is currently no sign that that will happen. Interim president Rocha appears to have no interest in calling a vote of confidence. It's true the Federation has called for Rubiales to resign but that formality means nothing unless he heeds it and he has no intention of doing so.
If FIFA's investigation concludes with no ban and a lengthy case in Spain drags on then his shadow looms large over the Federation for the foreseeable future.
The Federation's reluctance to take real action is rooted in the significant number of Rubiales allies who are resisting it from inside the organisation out of loyalty to the man they still consider to be their boss.
And the more things stay that way, the more credibility is lost, and smaller the chance that the Santiago Bernabeu, the new Camp Nou and San Mames will host the semi-finals and final of the 2030 World Cup.