Spain show why they were installed as the WC favorites

I am not one to blow my own vuvuzela (read: horn) but the game played out almost exactly as I thought it would and alluded to in my previous post: Spain vs Germany: Proactive and reactive styles collide

Spain was masterful in the semi-final. This is the sort of game that installed them as one of the favorites for the tournament and if they have a half-decent game against the Dutch, I don’t see the Dutch keeping the trophy away from Spain. As I said in the previous post, the key thing is to keep the Germans from scoring early and Spain managed that rather easily by just hogging possession and making the Germans run around in circles all game. Germany seemed a little scared of being opened up by one of those incisive passes from Xavi or Xabi Alonso and almost seemed happy to let Spain have the possession. On the left for Germany, Podolski was negated as an attacking threat by Sergio Ramos constantly bombing forward and I was surprised on more than one occasion to see Sergio Ramos in the German penalty box. This was made possible by the inclusion of Pedro as a right sided forward or winger. He was constantly making wide runs and was being supported by Ramos. The German left back Boateng had his hands full with Pedro and so the responsibility of tracking Ramos’ bombing runs fell on Podolski which maybe one of the reasons that the Germans couldn’t play their counter-attacking game which they did successfully against England and Argentina.

Iniesta had a good game as well and Sergio Busquets stuckl ike glue to Mesut Ozil and thereby neutralized him from the game. Much has been made of Thomas Mueller’s absence but I can’t seem to think it would have made much of a difference since he was likely not to receive the same support as he did against other teams with both Podolski and Ozil effectively being shut out of the game. Toni Kroos had an excellent opportunity but his feeble shot was never going to beat the best goalkeeper in the world in Casillas.

Spain’s goal was wonderful in its simplicity and the credit goes to Puyol. Xavi took the corner and Puyol dashed in from the edge of the box where he was left unmarked and powered through a flying header which again showed the vulnerability of the zonal marking system that the Germans used for defending. I have never been a big fan of this and at the very least Puyol should have been marked by someone. The one disappointing thing for Spain might have been Pedro being very selfish and not giving Torres a chance to score in an open goal and thereby kill off the match. I’d still be very surprised to see Pedro not starting the final considering the impact he had on this game.

All in all it was a masterful performance by the Spaniards and I’d be very surprised if the Netherlands are able to stop them from claiming a first ever World Cup. It is about bloody time.

About Selwyn Frank

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[ديباج]

Congratulations to the Spain World Cup
Was indeed worth it

[tom]

torres and villa, sweet duo