Saturday 23nd June
Kick Off: 7-45pm
Fifa Rankings:
Spain 1
France 14
Road to the Quarters:
France came out of the same group of England but didn't really live up to their pre-tournament as a "team to watch". For all their slick movement they failed to really threaten England despite having more possession, They brushed aside a poor Ukraine but then lost to Sweden when they needed to win to avoid this very game.
There were rumours of heated words apres the Sweden defeat which have now been confirmed by their manager. The spectre of the strike in South Africa two years ago hangs over the squad and few French pundits give their side a chance against the world champions.
Spain won their group as most would have expected and at times they pass the ball to death. At one point they are said to have made 90 consecutive passes against Ireland but there is the rub. It was Ireland. If you are playing a team as poor as Eire why do you need 90 passes to create a chance. The world champions lack of real fire power is such a worry that they even tried playing without a striker in their first game. It didn't work and Italy could count themselves slightly unlucky not to have won that one.
Ones to Watch:
Spain - Whoever plays up front, they need to find the missing spark and convert possession into goals
France - Alou Diarra, the holding midfielder will be key to breaking up the Spanish tippy-tappy
Odds:
Spain 2/5 to qualify
France 15/8 to qualify
Prediction:
For all the praise lavished on Spain watching them can sometimes be, whisper it,a little boring. The opposition have to take a big slice of blame for this, often sticking 9 or 10 players behind the ball but Spain's patience, admirable and game winning though it is, doesn't always make for the best viewing for the neutral. So expect a tight game but with the expected result:
1 - 0 to the Champions
Henry Irving
Member
Comments
Alonso to score anytime ( 13-2 Paddypower )
Ribery to be shown a card ( 4-1 Betfair )
Watching this on the floating Barcelona bar at embankment so hoping for a Spanish win.
2-1 Espania AET
But with my luck so far, that's not going to happen...
they left that late :)
Poor france. If ever England played like that, no heart, no passion, no spirit, no clue i would be ashamed, as those french players should be, they seem more bothered getting a Spanish shirt as a souvenir.
If Portugal go for it then they could defo beat Spain.
Perhaps a confidence thing but as the pundits are saying the attitude wasn't right....that pedestrian walk back by malouda would be out of place in League 2 let alone a major tournament. Would get dropped doing that at Chelsea.
Tonight's game showed why the EPL - despite all of its flaws - is worth about 10 times the money on the international TV market that La Liga is.
The English game is about getting forward and attacking, the Spanish game is about holding the ball and controlling the game. The latter is more effective than the former but nowhere near as compelling to watch.
I still find the way they work so bloody hard pressing the oppo until they make a mistake then the movement and control they have a pleasure to watch tbh. Rather watch that then both sides endlessly conceding possesion and hopeful long punts.
That said it takes two to make a game of it and tonight the french were awful. In Ribery they have a top quality player yet he might as well have not bothered travelling to tournament. No goals and 1 assist in 4 games is nowhere near good enough for him.
The Germans are playing the best all round game by a country mile imo.
WTF was Blanc doing with that team selection?
If we can get past Italy...
Everyone tries to beat Spain by playing 4-5-1, why not try something different and play a 4-3-3 and try and press them high up the pitch?
I think we have seen by now that the Spanish can unpick a 5 man midfield quite easily, so why not pressure their defence before they can release the ball into midfield?
In a dream world England V Portugal final and we get revenge for all the times they've knocked us out.
Quite what do we want? Every game they play is against 11 plus 1 bus, yet they still keep on winning. Sometimes it's not as pretty as others, true enough, but if it were England it would be "effective" and "job done" and not "dull".
I do thank that teams are mentally beaten before they take to the pitch but Italy showed they have weaknesses at the back and can be beaten. Not easily of course and any team that attacks them is taking a risk.
Remember Charlton were accussed of being boring and sitting on one nil leads by fans of other clubs last year. We just laughed and pointed at the league table.
When I think back to the great Brazil side of 1982 they would never have done that, they wanted not just to win but create something truly memorable - and they did.
Sure Spain might win this tournament but will people remember it - outside Spain - for more than a couple of weeks?
The point is that football has to be about more than getting a result if you are a top, top team, there has to be some entertainment there and I don't see how anyone outside Spain supporters could have been entertained by that.
Spain have found a ruthless style of play which suits them but it is certainly not entertaining to people outside their fan base and the real footballing cognoscenti.
All I know is that 30 years after the event I can remember them dismantling teams or fun until they got beaten 3-2 by the Italians in the knockout stage.
Apart from Maradona in 1986 I can't remember too many memorable teams/performers since then, apart from maybe the Brazilian Ronaldo in 2002 in Korea/Japan.
True, but people still recall the beautiful, wondrous football played by the teams of Puskas in '54, Cruyff in '74 and Socrates in '82, it's what made generations fall in love with the game.
Spain scored 8 goals in 7 games to win the last WC and, taking out the irrelevant penalty and the turkey shoot against the woeful Irish have scored only 3 in 3 from open play here.
Even my 7 year old son picked up on it his morning, asking why Spain "did not want to score any more goals" as they played dull, possession football for 70 minutes to close the game out.
Bottom line, this is not just supposed to be a competition, it's supposed to be a celebration of football and, most importantly, enjoyable to watch with thrills, spills and dramatic moments - not much of that from Spain, is there?
Who would ever have thought the Germans would be the most exciting team to watch?