You mean that just throwing talented players at the pitch is not enough?

But first, let us keep a moment of silence for all the bandwagon fans who have stampeded over to the Germany NT bandwagon… we won’t miss you!

… anything to keep myself from beating my head against the wall when I think of Vicente Del Bosque and His Merry Band of Men.

A few days ago, Wembley was witness to the most boring England win in years, as Spain failed to make anything of oodles of possession and Pepe Reina’s bad day in the office.

And yesterday, it took Silva, Cazorla and Busquets coming off the bench, plus a late burst of wounded pride, for Spain to scratch a draw off hosts Costa Rica in San Juan (let’s not say anything about poor Casillas‘ awful, awful day at the office).

This is so far from ‘good enough’ that ‘good enough’ can’t be seen from where Our Wise Walrus is without the help of a powerful telescope. Let’s hope the RFEF is enjoying the money it¡s making off renting out the exhausted World Champions like party clowns.

The good news are that Jordi Alba and Nacho Monreal got minutes of play and showed that not all hope is lost when it comes to Spain and fullbacks. Small mercies…

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), José Manuel Reina (Liverpool), Víctor Valdés (Barcelona)

Defenders: Álvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Carles Puyol (Barcelona), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Raúl Albiol (Real Madrid), Jordi Alba (Valencia), Ignacio Monreal (Málaga)

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Sergio Busquets (Barcelona), Santiago Cazorla (Málaga), Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona), Xavi Hernández (Barcelona), Javi Martínez (Athletic Club), Cesc Fábregas (Barcelona)

Forwards: David Villa (Barcelona), David Silva (Manchester City), Fernando Llorente (Athletic Club), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Jesús Navas (Sevilla) and Juan Mata (Chelsea).

So, that’s all the players who’ve played nearly -if not all- the matches with their clubs (Xabi Alonso, I’m looking at you), the players who’ve recently come out of injuries (Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, hi!), the players who don’t even feature in their club’s starting XIs (remember Navas?)… and Torres.

At least the Marquis has stopped calling up Capdevila and we get Alba and Monreal in his place; although, of course, knowing Our Wise Walrus, they might not get to play anyway.

In any case, if you’re going to be at Wembley or at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica, you’re getting your money’s worth…

Is it something about the name 'David'? Can we re-name Torres that?

There are few things to take away from this matches, but those happen to be important…

-Jordi Alba, the surprise call-up, after being ignored for the first match, performed exceedingly well at LB in the second, starting his Spain run with an assist and a good command of his position.
-David Silva, who had openly complained about his lack of starts, justified this with a couple of matches (and a couple of goals) that had the Spanish press comparing him to Messi and will make team selection rather complicated for Our Wise Walrus once Iniesta and Cesc are back in full health.
-David Villa reached the not-negligible sum of 50 goals for Spain in the Scotland match.
-Even The Marquis lost patience with Fernando Torres (about a year too late), though we suspect it’ll take more than this for Roberto Soldado to earn a place in the Spain squad.

Full HD match highlights after the jump!

If you were expecting a surprise… well, remember who we’re talking about.

Here, have my fave pic of Marquis Del Bosque.

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), José Manuel Reina (Liverpool), Víctor Valdés (Barcelona)

Defenders: Álvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Carles Puyol (Barcelona), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Raúl Albiol (Real Madrid), Jordi Alba (Valencia)

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Sergio Busquets (Barcelona), Santiago Cazorla (Málaga), Thiago Alcántara (Barcelona), Xavi Hernández (Barcelona), Javi Martínez (Athletic Club), Cesc Fábregas (Barcelona)
Update: Cesc Fàbregas pulled his hamstring at training with Barcelona and will be out for 3 weeks. Javi Martínez, who picked up a knock with Athletic de Bilbao, recovered in time and will join La Roja.

Forwards: David Villa (Barcelona), David Silva (Manchester City), Fernando Llorente (Athletic Club), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Pedro Rodríguez (Barcelona), Álvaro Negredo (Sevilla) and Juan Mata (Chelsea).

The only surprise is the inclusion of young Jordi Alba, who is having a very good season with Valencia, having settled into the first team nicely, and who will provide -finally!- some new full-back talent. Though people like Iraola and José Enrique will have to wait still. Wait for what? Ah, who knows how the mind of Our Wise Walrus works?

Spain is already qualified for the Euros! Isn’t this the moment to bring in new people, instead of carting about the same old TIRED players? Puyol has a knock and might not play for Barcelona this weekend, Negredo too for Sevilla, Xabi Alonso has played every match in this season for RM… but no, of course not, let’s drag them all over Europe for meaningless matches!

What I could say about the Torres/Soldado issue I won’t write here, because children might stumble upon this blog.

La Roja’s call-ups are becoming an exercise in frustration for me and for many others, thanks to VDB’s insistence in eschewing experimentation. Let’s just hope that, tired and bored as they must be, the players give their best in the matches to come and we at least get some good football out of the deal.

It was a pretty standard evening for La Roja, apart from the fact that Del Bosque continues to baffle us by putting midfielders in the CB position when there are natural CBs on the bench (Botía, Domínguez) or better suited starters (Sergio Ramos) and that Thiago Alcántara got his official debut and put an end to the speculation that he was looking at Brazil and/or Italy. Oh, and also apart from the fact that Fernando Torres wasn’t even on the bench; Our Wise Walrus relegated him to the stands, with the newbies and the semi-injured, and started Negredo, who promptly replied with two goals.

Maybe it’s not quite the end for El Niño and La Roja, but it’s certainly food for thought.

In any case, Spain is mathematically qualified for the 2012 Euros now; the next matches will only serve to cement our position at the top of the group, and as such, might be great grounds for Del Bosque to experiment… or to continue doing what he always does. His latest changes haven’t seemed particularly wise, but things can’t remain in the same 2008-Euros stasis as they have…

Which might be why no one was surprised when we were trailing 0-2 at HT and being completely and utterly outplayed.

Our Wise Walrus played Casillas, Ramos, Albiol, Javi Martinez, Arbeloa, Alonso, Busquets, Xavi, Silva, Villa and Negredo from the start, with Javi Martínez partnering Albiol as CB -apparently Bielsa has also been playing him there lately-, Busquets and Xabi as the dratted double-pivot and Negredo getting the nod ahead of Torres or Llorente. And it was horrible. The defence was poor (though, it must be said, Javi Martínez was the best at it), the midfield lost the ball every couple of passes, and the forwards just drifted sadly about, with no news of the ball; Silva was the best thing happening for us, but even he wasn’t enough.

For the second half, Del Bosque changed his tune. Reina, Iniesta and Pedro came in for Casillas, Alonso and Villa, which meant the double-pivot was no more and we finally regained control of the midfield, which took the pressure off our beleaguered defence and fed our attack with purpose. Not ten minutes into the first half, Iniesta scored the first for Spain, which prompted The Marquis to take off Negredo and Xavi for Torres and Cesc; Torres was Torres, but Cesc showed a need to prove himself, and scored the equaliser seven minutes after coming on, to an Iniesta assist, and then scored on the rebound after Arbeloa was ‘brought down’ on the Chile box and the referee gave Spain a PK in injury time.

But was that comeback the best news of the evening? No! The best news of the evening was that when Iniesta faced off with a Chile player after being fouled, Arbeloa came to his defence! And then Cesc and Busquets came in defence of Arbeloa! And then Ramos came in defence of Busquets! Like a beautifully choreographed dance (not that I am, at all, suspecting it might have been staged), the Spanish Real Madrid and Barcelona players came together to show the world that they are the only ones allowed to foul, push, slap and insult each other. Heartwarming!

For more news and updates as we prepare for the qualifier against Liechtenstein on Tuesday, follow us on Twitter!

We used to complain about Our Wise Walrus' call-ups being all the same...

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Pepe Reina (Liverpool FC), Víctor Valdés (FC Barcelona)

Defenders: Álvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Raúl Albiol (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Alberto Botia (Sporting de Gijón), Álvaro Domínguez (Atlético de Madrid), Martín Montoya (Barça B).

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Sergio Busquets (FC Barcelona), Santiago Cazorla (Mágala CF), Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona), Thiago Alcántara (FC Barcelona), Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona), Javi Martínez (Athletic de Bilbao), Cesc Fábregas (FC Barcelona).

Forwards: David Villa (FC Barcelona), David Silva (Manchester City), Fernando Llorente (Athletic de Bilbao), Fernando Torres (Chelsea CF), Pedro Rodríguez (FC Barcelona), Álvaro Negredo (Sevilla FC), Juan Mata (Chelsea CF).

Sign of Spain’s problems in defence -and Our Wise Walrus’ insanity (?)- is that with Piqué, Puyol and Iraola injured, we’ve been forced to bring a player from a youth team -albeit, a very successful, second-division youth team- in: Martín Montoya, who admittedly did very well at the U21s Euros in the RB position. Sporting’s Botía and Atlético de Madrid’s Domínguez also sneak in, bringing some new blood to our back four and making the call-up more than a Barça-RM mix-up… which could be helpful, considering that the Clásico problems seem to be getting worse, not better.

The midfield and forwards, though, stay the same, even with Fernando Torres’ poor form and Llorente’s not-so-great last showing. What Roberto Soldado -to make an example- needs to do to get a call-up, we don’t want to speculate.

In any case, we hope this list is enough to get us two good results. Slipping from the FIFA rankings Number 1 in favour of The Netherlands due to our bad results in friendlies, though ultimately meaningless -who won the World Cup, after all?- still rankles.

Our Wise Walrus came up with Casillas, Iraola, Piqué, Albiol, Arbeloa, Javi Martínez, Xabi Alonso, Iniesta, Cazorla, Silva and Torres as his starting XI. The back-four was three men removed from the usual, and it showed in that we conceded the first goal 10 minutes into the game. Cassano and Rossi were getting the best of everyone but Javi Martínez, whose obvious talent and desperate defending was not enough to stop the Azzurri tide all on his lonesome, and Casillas, who performed a miracle or two; our flanks were wide, open highways for the Italian attack, and it looked like everyone further upfield from Xabi Alonso had gone AWOL.

15 minutes in, after colliding into an Italian defender, Fernando Torres felt dizzy and lost his hearing and had to be subbed out for Fernando Llorente and taken to hospital in a hurry for CAT exams (he’s fine, it was a small concussion). Unlike it’s happened in so many friendlies where Llorente changed the attack for the better, this time he pulled his best statue impersonation and did nothing. Spain equalised through a Xabi Alonso PK that, frankly, didn’t look like one to me, and after having Piqué asked to be subbed for Busquets (the Barcelona defender having offered to play in spite of problems on his right leg, due to lack of available defenders) we went to HT.

The second half, with Valdés for Casillas, Thiago Alcántara making his debut for Iniesta, and Iraola having to be subbed out David Villa (we were fresh out of defenders by the time Iraola reported some muscular problems), was surprisingly much better. Villa brought energy and intent to our attack, linked well with Silva and Cazorla, and Thiago also helped pushing forwards, wanting to impress. But we couldn’t score, and with our defence a patchwork of out-of-position players (Busquets was suffering as RB against Ballotelli), Aquilani got a lucky shot (with a luckier deflection off Albiol’s leg) and scored in the dying minutes.

An experimental team, a plague of injuries and a not-altogether embarrasing result. Meh, it was a friendly, it could be worse. Kudos to Italy for showing an incisive, coherent style of play.

In other news, the U20 boys made it to the World Cup quarter finals after drawing 0-0 with South Korea and then winning 7-6 in a nail-biting penalty shoot-out. They’ll meet the winner of Brazil vs Saudia Arabia!

I'll give you a small clue...

For the friendly against Italy that will be played next Wednesday (August 10) at Bari, Del Bosque has called up:

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Pepe Reina (Liverpool), Víctor Valdés (FC Barcelona)

Defenders: Álvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Raúl Albiol (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Gerard Piqué (FC Barcelona), Andoni Iraola (Athletic de Bilbao).

Midfielders: Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), Sergio Busquets (FC Barcelona), Santiago Cazorla (Málaga), Andrés Iniesta (FC Barcelona), Thiago Alcántara (FC Barcelona), Xavi Hernández (FC Barcelona), Javi Martínez (Athletic de Bilbao).

Forwards: David Villa (FC Barcelona), David Silva (Manchester City), Fernando Llorente (Athletic de Bilbao), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Pedro Rodríguez (FC Barcelona), Álvaro Negredo (Sevilla), Juan Mata (Valencia).

So, Iraola gets the call-up instead of Capdevila -for whom, really, we need to find a permanent replacement- and Thiago Alcántara can make his debut for La Roja, whether on the force of his performance at the U21 Euros and at the pre-season with Barça, or on the force of the rumours that stage-dad Mazinho wouldn’t mind his sons playing for the Brazil NT. Thiago also fills the spot left by Cesc Fàbregas -all resemblance with the situation at a certain Catalan club is entirely coincidential-, of whom Del Bosque said that wasn’t called-up because he hadn’t been training with his team.

Considering this is going to be a pre-season, international friendly, I’m not expecting much of interest to happen during the match, but I will be watching avidly all the same, and so should you!

… no, it doesn’t get any less exciting.

Bet you we can do this in every category there is!

Ironically enough, the final against the Czech Republic was possibly the worst match for La Rojita in this tournament. They had to come back from behind twice, the first time with 6 minutes of regular time to go, the next with less than 10 minutes of ET left, and then score the winner 5 minutes before they had to go to PKs. The defense was wobbly as all get out (the absence of Dani Carvajal, injured, was sorely felt), and the forwards looked disjointed and out of synch.

Still, props to Álvaro Morata (top goalscorer of the tournament), Pablo Sarabia (MVP of the tournament), Paco Alcácer (always there with the crucial goals at the crucial moment), Gerard Deulofeu (youngest squad member and yet determinant, like Iker Muniain with the U21s), Sergi Gómez and Miquel in defence, and the rest of the team that made it possible.

The wealth of footballing talent that Spain has at its disposal right now is unbelievable…

(highlights and better celebration pics to be added when they become available! ETA: highlights can be found here.)

Picture via Sergi Gómez's Twitter...