Mara-VILLA

the spanish got stronger as the game went on, that was encouraging, their defence became more bearable as the game went on as well, but has to get better to go anywhere in this tournament

iniesta’s pass for the 2nd goal was great, but otherwise i thought his game was below average (for his high standards…) i think the pitch was a bit wet and maybe he isnt 100% due to that stomach bug he had. xavi had a better game than iniesta.

capdevilla was caught napping on russia’s one goal. casillas wasnt troubled much otherwise.

i think you have to leave puyol in there…but i am partial to him. i dont know much about the albiol/marchena thing…

Albiol is no defensive world champion himself, but surely he could do no worse than Marchena.. I vote for him replacing Marchena against Sweden on Saturday.. couldn’t watch the game today, had to be content with minute by minute updates from goal.com, but I will be at Nevada Smith’s on Saturday for the Sweden game. Anybody else?

Wish I could, Daniel …

Great game was tougher than the scoreline suggests. The defense kept me at the edge of my seat throughout most of the game we have to improve or other teams will just eat us alive imagine our defense going up against Van Nistleroy or Sneijder, Kuyt and the Oranje’s. Scary, but its the first game and there is time to improve.I dont think there is problem mainly w/ Marchena and Puyol they played ok I thought Sergio pushed up maybe a little too much and left the rest of the defense in some precarious positions at times. Otherwise my Valencia or sadly ex-Valencia Villa tore some shit up WOW!!!!

Why Fabregs did start this game on the bench?
his coatch and team mates dosent like him or what?i’ve noticed that they didn’t pass the ball to him so offen

Silva seemed invisable until late in the second half. I wonder if Santi (given his play against the U.S.) deserves a start. Also, who’d have thought Spain would be counter-attacking in this game?

To all Spanish out there. To give England a small (Very small) chance of winning something this year I am organizing a veterans 7-a-side tournament on Saturday 21st June In Vienna.

Have English, French, Austrian and Czech teams but need a Spanish side to add a bit of colour….

If interested (and NOT too good or young…) please email me on bristolcream2008@hotmail.co.uk.

OK great win but we have to keep our feet on the grand and focus. That said, a couple of interesting stats on the game.

1- The last time we saw a hat trick in the Euros was Platini and Van Basten. So El Guaje well done!

2- Xavi ran or covered 12 kilometers (12.044) to be exact – almost 7 1/2 miles. That boy just works the field.

Sweden looked ok and Greece was poor. We need to look out cause these teams need to win. Here’s rooting for Romania to upset the group of death. =)

Que viva España!

at elisa….actually they mentioned that Patrick Kluivert (at that time, a Barca man) scored a hat trick in Euro 2000 for the dutch….against yugoslavia i think…and you are right, Xavi is the man.

you can already see it…spain against france in the quarters. spain against holland in the semis.

ballbeav’s right, and it’s too darn bad…i want to see spain & holland in the FINAL not the semis!!

Very impressive today; a joy to watch. I am Dutch and certainly hoping the 2 teams will match up at some point. It should make for a great game!!
Spain will not have problems getting out of this group but please along the way lets see those Greeks demolished. What they put on was a disgrace to soccer

oh yeah forgot Party man Kluivert, my bad.

Question is who is the worst opponent for Spain – France, Italy, or Holland? I think France is the worst as they do in our head. Major bogey team.

Not here to spoil the Spaniards’ joy, but had Zyryanov’s ball gone in, it would have been a completely different game. Fourth goal was offside. Big question mark defensively..should practice clearing between. The game against Sweden will be very interesting to watch…

I’m hoping that Spain won’t relinquish their ‘Underachievers’ title again. Hopefully, this match will be the start to their further achievement instead of (yet) another downfall.

Impressive attack. The midfield was good, too. I would love to see Cesc being in the starting 11 instead of just a sub. We all know what he’s capable of. I can sense some hostility towards him, somehow.

I too hope that Luis Aragones retains this formation. Any tinkering should be in the defensive aspect.

After waiting over 6 hours at work, not checking my phone in fear of receiving any updates on the match, I finally rushed home and watched the taped game. I must say that I couldn’t have scripted it any better. My favorite player on earth–cesar, daniel and I aren’t new to his heroics–scores a hat trick and we win by three goals. Suffice it to say, I got quite tipsy in the process. That being said, the defense is quite porous. I believe they would’ve been exposed by a better team. Marchena played decent, I thought, but Puyol and Capdevila underachieved. Something must be done. We can’t count on just outscoring teams every game. Be that as it may, I’m proud of our boys. I wish I could be at Nevada Smith’s, but I’ll be drinking at Lucky Bar in DC in the early morning on Saturday in anticipation of the Suecia game. VIVA LA FURIA ROJA DE ESPANA!!!!!!

Won’t repeat joys of previously mentioned player and team highlights. Will add that watching the passing and possession brilliance create space (and somehow time) in traffic, in front of the box, was a real pleasure and gives me hope for the game . Otherwise:

- It would be tough to make Torres as lone striker work well after this club season — it really just makes him Torres the lone target. He and Villa are brilliant together, the way they read the game, their speed and their ability to thread the ball under pressure. And obviously because they spread the defense. Plus, The Hug following the third goal was the sweetest thing ever!

- I was crazy about Sergio Ramos at Madrid the previous season, but this year I realized that a lot of his game was due to his partnership on the right with Beckham – his speed with Beckham’s accuracy made them both better. Now he tries to cover too much of the wing, adding to the defense’s problems, and his accuracy was off. Hopefully with the midfield finding its next gear, that situation will sort itself out.

GREAT FUN MATCH!

For the record forth goal was not offise if you view the shot fabregas was onside when the shot was taken the rebound came back by then fabregas was past the defence but that does not qualify as offise due to teh fact its your possition when your own team kicks the ball.

So tada gooooo0o0o0o0o0o0ol.

Elisa, despite the way the Dutch spanked them, I still think Italy’s style of play could tear us apart. If we take first in D and Italy take second in C (I know, I’m getting WAY ahead of myself) that would set up a nightmare Spain-Italy quarter final. Let’s all start rooting against the Azzuri!

And I have to go back to this Villa-Torres subject. I love them playing together in a 4-4-2, but there will be plenty of occasions when the 4-5-1 will be more appropriate. And even before Villa’s hat trick, there was no question in my mind that Villa would be the better of the two (by far) in that position. I really like Torres, always have, but the hype he’s getting for his role at Liverpool needs to be seperated from the role he needs to play for Spain. I don’t want to see a situation where a player’s star power influences the coaches tactical decisions. Fortunately, that’s never been a problem for Aragones.

John, I completely agree with you on your 3 points mentioned. Hopefully Italy will just bottle it and we can focus on other teams.

I actually was impressed by Capdevila. His passes to Torres and Iniesta, respectively, helped create those first two goals. My problem is with Ramos. I just hope he had a bad game. But he left way too much space in the back when going up for everything. He needs to be cognizant of our two slower central defenders.

The team does not having anything against Cesc. Merely the combination of Senna-Xavi-Iniesta-Silva is clicking. But when Aragones brought Cesc in during the 2nd half, I thought Love is…5 Spanish midfielders. Crazy huh?

We just need to work on our positioning,try to defend as a team, and keep attacking. Sweden will mark Villa just as much as Torres. It’s going to be a great game.

david villa
xavi h.
are very good footballer