Spain 3, Chile 2, Or, Bonding Over Terrible Friendlies

September 3rd, 2011 | by: Ade C. |

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After a string of awful friendlies that saw our position at the top of the the FIFA ranking slip to second place, and with the rocky divorce between Real Madrid and Barça players over the latest Clásicos to make things even more difficult, the friendly against Chile looked like a pretty good test of character.

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!