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Confederations Cup Game 2: Spain v Iraq Preview

June 17th, 2009 | By: Anthony | 11 Comments »

After smashing New Zealand 5-0 on Sunday we now focus on our second opponent – Asian Cup Champions, Iraq. Unlike us, Iraq got their campaign off to a slow start after their boring 0-0 draw with hosts South Africa.

Fernando Torres was the man of the match against the Kiwi’s and had a treble of goals to prove it. One goal a piece from Cesc Fàbregas and David Villa added the icing on the cake as we strolled to a 5-0 victory. We completely dominated the match from beginning to end both in possession and goals. You could argue that New Zealand is probably the weakest side in the tournament so it doesn’t mean much but 5-0 is an impressive score line regardless of who it is against.

A win against Iraq would mean we automatically qualify for the next round but it will definitely be a tougher match than our first. Having said that though, if we control possession and play like we did against New Zealand, I have no doubt that we will walk out of Bloemfontein with all three points.

Iraq overall is better defensively than New Zealand so logically the score line is expected to be a bit more respectable than the one on Sunday. Being strong defensively is one thing and defending against the best attacking team in the world is another so we will have to see how the Asian Champions fare against La Furia Roja this afternoon.

Vicente del Bosque will most likely start the same XI he did last match with the exception of Fàbregas who picked up an injury in training after being tackled by Xabi Alonso; Sergi Busquets may start in place of the Arsenal midfielder.

If Fernando Torres and David Villa can maintain the form they have been in during recent international duty I have no doubt that we’ll easily get past Iraq and extend our incredible unbeaten run to 34 matches. It would also see us set a record as we would extend our winning streak to 14 matches.

Overall I don’t see the result being too different. Maybe a bit more modest but the same concept, we’re just too far superior.

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Tags: Cesc Fabregas, David Villa, Fernando Torres, FIFA Confederations Cup, Iraq, La Furia Roja, Match Preview, New Zealand, Sergi Busquets, South Africa, Spain, team news, Vicente del Bosque, Xabi Alonso

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Comments

By Armando | June 17th, 2009 at 7:25 am

Fabregas and Cazorla are out with injury arent they? On goal.com it says they both picked up knocks in the training session on Tuesday. To be honest, i dont think Cazorla should be starting in the first place, and Fabregas, while great to have, wouldve certainly helped, and Senna’s out too, but Spain can still field an extremely strong lineup, like this, using a 4-4-2:

———-Casillas
Ramos–Puyol–Marchena–Capdevila
Riera—-Xavi—-Alonso—-Silva
——–Torres–Villa

By Vicent | June 17th, 2009 at 10:13 am

Goooool de Villa!!!!

By Sol | June 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Pretty boring game. Torres was having a bad day, all of Spain looked a bit satisfied already, not much going on in the field, Iraq was so afraid, they didn’t even want to risk countering.

Spain needed a bit more speed and creativity for more goals, but they looked like they didn’t care much anymore after the 1-0 (who blames them, Iraq didn’t want to come out and play).

Professionally executed on an off-day.

I hope Iraq get’s slaughtered by New Zealand, cause they went the Italian way and I hate whenever that defensive “9 man in front of the goal strategy” works as it did today. Now these guys have an advantage over New Zealand in terms of goals, and that’s just what they wanted. Don’t like their attitude, at least New Zealand gave it a try.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 17th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

They should have taken an example from Egypt, if you play with heart and guts, ANYTHING can happen.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jose | June 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm

Sol, to be fair, I think Iraq was banking on goal differential getting them into the semis. So as long as they could avoid being dismantled by Spain…

By Sol | June 17th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

Yeah, I know that’s what they were doing, I just didn’t like it very much, and I’m annoyed even more that it worked. That kind of play makes games so boring to watch.

It’s just so annoying that it always works at that you can even win European or World Cups with it. The more it works, the more teams will switch to it whenever faced with an opponent they fear (offensive teams like Spain, Brazil, Holland). And that makes for boring games. And since I’m a Holland fan, we, just like Spain and Brazil, will have to play these kind of matches the most. And since most of the matches I watch are of course the Holland matches, it means I have to watch more and more boring games. I just prefer the other teams to be a bit more bold.

Thankfully we are seeing the Italians more succesful with offensive play lately, and a couple of other lesser teams in WCQ switching more towards offensive/creative play. And we see Greece failing, sort of, their qualifying group is too weak to prevent them from qualifying for the WC, but they already failed with their “turtle defense” style at the EC, as did Sweden and the other teams in the Portugal/Turkey group of the EC, oh, and of course Romania. They all failed with their defensive style and the teams that wanted to take risks got the rewards of advancing to the next round.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

at=and (second sentence)

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 17th, 2009 at 1:08 pm

The least they could have done was take some more risks when they were 1-0 behind. They didn’t even do that. Allthough I think they did try to start countering, but why wouldn’t they do that at 0-0? Come on man, it’s a counter, you have to take your chance, they kept playing for possesion whenever a counter-opportunity occured and played back to the defenders even when there was plenty of space to move forward. They just stayed back, sometimes trying one long pass to one lonely guy upfront, and that was it. And usually the pass was very poor, but OK, I won’t hold that against them (but that’s what happens if you don’t try to put some effort in it).

Posted from Netherlands

By Timothy Lakefront | June 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am

We’re going to destroy Italy in the semis. I found Lippi’s recent comments that even if they practiced 10 hrs a day, they couldn’t play like Spain. Actually, I hope Egypt takes care of them today so we won’t have to.

Posted from United States

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By Sol | June 19th, 2009 at 11:15 am

@Timothy, Italy doesn’t need to play like Spain to beat Spain. They can normally rely on their defense and win through counters. But it seems their defense is showing some weakness.

It might also turn out into another 0-0 with penalty shoot-out just like in the EC ‘08.

Allthough you would expect Spain to be able to break any defense right now, but then again, has Spain changed so much since 2008, or has Italy? I think Italy might have lost a bit in defense, but it also seems they have improved a bit in offense (allthough the finishing is still crap, they have no Torres ).

Posted from Netherlands

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