Spain U21 1, England U21 1: Highlights and Match Comments

June 13th, 2011 | by: Ade C. | Comments Off

A match determined by a handball goal and an offsides goal. You’d think this game was exciting, and you’d be wrong.

Spain played with De Gea, Montoya, Botía, Domínguez, Didac, Javi Martínez, Mata, Herrera, Thiago, Jeffren and Adrián. Millá reserved some of the better players from his side -like Bojan, Capel or Muniaín-, but he played a strong side, with two World Cup winners.

La Rojita played well, the defence dealing solidly with England’s long balls and the midfield controlling possession and setting the pace, but the final third was missing. Adrián fell off the face of the Earth, Jeffren folded into midfield and the most active player around England’s goal was Herrera. That’s why the goal came from a set piece -and a handball-, because there was no one who could give the final pass to break through the English defence.

Millá took too long to make the changes -it was the 72nd minute when the first one happened- and even then, it was to take the invisible Adrián for Parejo, thus leaving Spain without a recognisable striker; this didn’t help Spain’s slow retreat towards their goal, nor England’s insistent -if not particularly ellaborate- attacking. Bojan came in with barely 10 minutes to go, and Capel five minutes later, but they didn’t have to try to do anything before an incisive pass from Walker, couple with a rare moment of confusion by the Spanish defence, saw Welbeck score the equaliser with 3 minutes to go until the end of the match.

Maybe Spain deserved better, because they were the better side, but the utter lack of incisiveness at the top was going to cost us sooner or later. Next match, I hope that Bojan and Muniaín start for Adrián and Jeffren, to give the team more kick, or we’ll be languishing in midfield and vulnerable to counters again.

Still, kudos to the splendid captain Javi Martínez, to Montoya -who looked very well despite just coming out of a lengthy injury-, to the creative, hard-working Thiago, to the solid De Gea and to the enthusiastic Ander Herrera, who were the best players out there.

Now, we’ll face the Czech Republic -who beat Ukraine 2-1 on Saturday- on Wednesday, on a match we will have to win if we want to progress and have a chance to make the Olympics.