Armenia v Spain Preview; “Something to be Proud of”

Technically we’ve qualified for the World Cup next year in South Africa and if we wanted, could go into this match not caring at all. First of all, that’s disrespect to our opponents who for this match, happen to be Armenia. Second of all, we’re La Furia Roja, we go into every game looking to play our beautiful quick touch football and light up the footballing world so anything less than 100% is unacceptable by our own personal standards.

Armenia isn’t exactly the toughest opposition in the world and in fact, the last time we played them we easily came out on top 4-0 at home but nothing can be taken for granted. Today we travel to the Armenian capital of Yerevan where we can expect a hostile atmosphere and although we’ve already booked our flights to South Africa and the poor Armenians sit last place in our group with no chance of making an appearance in the World Cup next year we have to take this match just as seriously as any other.

Every game for us now is simply for a matter of playing for our pride as we have a perfect World Cup qualification record to maintain.

It won’t be as straight forward as we would have liked however as we have several key players our through injury and minor knocks. Since this isn’t a massive match, Del Bosque decided not to risk further injury and kept those few superstars back home.

Our main man who will be missing is our top scorer in David Villa but he is replaced by an in form Álvaro Negredo who has been doing extremely well for Sevilla since the club’s record purchase this past summer. Negredo could very easily start the match as Dani Güiza is nursing a slight injury and Fernando Torres may be nursing one as he had to leave training a bit early due to a problem with his calf. Our biggest boost however is the return of the man we missed so much in South Africa when we struggled in the Confederations Cup and that man is none other than little Andrés Iniesta. Our right sided midfielder will be putting on the legendary jersey for the first time since February and this is massive for us considering how valuable he is to our squad. The only other noticable name out of the squad is Álvaro Arbeloa and that is due to a knee problem.

This match will be a perfect opportunity for Vicente del Bosque to experiment with a few new combinations and for players who don’t receive much playing time, to impress. Negredo being a newcomer will definitely be one of those men looking to do such and by doing so he could be blowing the dust off his passport getting ready for next year in South Africa. There’s no doubt he’s more than a talent, but is he good enough for La Furia Roja?

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