Italy 2, Spain 1, Or, Our Talent At Underwhelming Friendlies Continues

August 11th, 2011 | by: Ade C. | Comments Off

Not that I was expecting much of a lazy international friendly just before the start of the season, with a call-up list plagued with absences and injured (Sergio Ramos and Xavi had to abandon the team before they left Spain and Nacho Monreal, called up instead of Ramos, got injured during the last training session), but I did expect better than this.

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!