South Africa 0-2 Spain; “Setting Records and Advancing”

This result doesn’t make Spain any weaker by the way. Possibly even stronger cause now they’ve learned a lesson that if they want to keep winning they have to give it ALL, especially after facing 3 weak opponents which is probably the main reason they started this game so slow and not playing their utmost best right from the start converting those chances you had in the first half. You could see the quality of their play drop after the New Zealand game, just a bit more and more every game they played. First it was Torres, than Villa, and ultimately the whole team was playing below their level.

It was like a hunger that slowly diminished the more games they won, you could see it on the field. For Spain this is a good thing, cause it could have happened during WC 2010 with much more consequences. Now they can recharge again. And they’ll have some important experience under their belt.

A similar thing happened to the Dutch in the EC 08. We had pretty comfortable and easy wins over Italy and France, and then faced a much weaker opponent Romania which we easily brushed aside with our B-team. Then came Russia and at the start we took our chances too lightly (not serious or agressive enough).

I think this WC is going to be like the EC 08 and it’s all going to be about who converts their chances the best/most effective unlike the EC 04 and WC 06 which were more about having a good defense. Brazil looks to have the best papers now on that front.

Posted from  Netherlands

“Overall I’m extremely happy with the result as I neither consider America a threat whatsoever…”

sweet sweet irony. you guys arent world champions yet even though you may think that you are!

Posted from  United States

America F*CK YEAH!

“First I think it the referee fault should have given us the penalty for our dive. Then those African horns made us not concentrate. Then the Americans are cheaters wasting time and diving things Spain never does. Then the game was rigged by Asian betters. Then Americans played anti-football. Then we deserved to win anyway. Finally Confederation Cup doesn’t count and Spain will never lose again.”

FOOTBALL WON TONIGHT ANTHONY!

Posted from  United States

Dustin,America F*** Yeah, for real! Was that Gary Johnston I spotted on the pitch?

Hey, shit happens. Spain lost. All things must come to an end to start again.

Until Spain wins a WC or reaches a final, they’re power-light – as good as they are. The quality is still there and they can change all this in 2010. No Senna or Iniesta hurts so I wouldn’t panic.

FORZA ITALIA CAMPIONI DEL MONDO FORZA ITALIA!!!!!!! 1934 1938 1982 2006

ITALIA 3 USA 1

Posted from  Canada

sorry anthony. sevillista hasta la muerte, but BORN IN THE USA, BABY!! if spain is playing anyone else in the world they are my favorite team. but my boys came out and made me and all of us USAers proud to be fans today. great to see us get a convincing win over an opponent of the highest quality. our back line held tight and our attacking mids and forwards worked well off the ball for those goals and this win. sergio ramos is definitely the worst player on spain’s team, but they were also missing senna and iniesta. i think iniesta would have been much more difficult to handle had he been playing. bottom line: there are no gimmes on the international level. especially not in a FIFA semifinal.

U-S-A!!

one other thing that made me really happy about this match was the way we won over a crowd that anticipated a spanish record victory. by the end, you could hear lots more USA chants coming from the southafricans who had probably come to enjoy what they expected to be a continuation of the previous 35 matches of spain’s beautiful game. now, if we could only win people over with our diplomacy… ; )

I’m wondering what Anthony will write, probably something like
“This tournament wasn’t important anyway, who cares about the Confederations Cup” despite Spain fielding their strongest team all the time.

Posted from  Netherlands

Everybody loses sooner or later. Spain should be happy, 34 or 35 games unbeaten and 14 or 15 games in a row winning is amazing. One of the best of all-time, if not THE best. Plus, missing Silva, Iniesta, and Senna really hurts. Even though i think Alonso should be starting over Senna anyways, even without counting Senna, missing David Silva and Andres Iniesta is doing some serious damage. Still though, it’s a massive upset, and again, the USA put on a diving clinic, especially Altidore, whose probably the biggest diver i’ve ever seen, and played shitty football and got lucky. I mean, really, for almost the entire second half (other than the two times they attacked on the counter, one of those ending up in a second goal for the US) they had 8 players defending, 9 counting the Keeper. Talk about parking the bus.

How else do they want to win? Spain has the best attack in the world.

I hate dumb excuses like that. A win is a win, no matter how.

Posted from  Netherlands

yeah armando, you can complain about parking the bus if it was 0-0 and went to penalties or maybe even if it was 1-0 and we scored off of a set piece. but we won by 2 goals and both from the run of play. yeah we defended a lot but we also counterattacked so this whole “parking the bus” argument is unfounded. also, yeah senna and iniesta were out, but even still, xabi alonso is still considered far better than ANY united states player so really not a good excuse to make there. also, i’ll admit we dived, but we had already scored goals by then so don’t blame the result on that. your arguments are making you look bitter and petty.

and also 8 players defending isn’t parking the bus. it means 4 defenders who obviously play defense and 4 midfielders whose role is 50% defense. i don’t know of any coach for any 4-4-2 playing team who WOULDN’T want 8 of his players playing consistent defense, no matter who the opposition is.

Italy is a joke, they were getting smoked by the US until that nonsensical red card. Que viva espana y god bless the USA!

Posted from  United States

Wow, you USA fans are really looking to start a heated argument with somebody. I wasnt looking for an argument, i’m not gonna go back and forth with you guys. I stated facts, and that’s it. And SP, there’s only 2 players on the pitch that should be consistently defending, and those are the two centerbacks. If i had to estimate, i’d say fullbacks jobs are 60% defensive, 40% offensive. Central midfielders are 50-50, and wingers are 60 or 70% offensive, and 30 or 40% defensive. The thing is, the USA had 8 men, 9 including the keeper, in their own final third of the pitch for the majority of the second half. I’m not making an excuse, i’m just stating that that’s the way it happenned. As i said, i’m not trying to start a heated argument. I even live in the US. The US played a good game, but like it or not, did “park the bus”. Still, congrats to the US for an (otherwise) impressive win.

And i’m sorry, but missing Silva, Iniesta, and Senna is not small. It’s a huge deal, and it’s not an excuse to make that clear. Think of it like this, if you were Manchester United and playing, say, Aston Villa for example. Not quite up to Man United’s level, but still good enough to pull an upset. If you were missing Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, and Darryn Fletcher, and ending up losing the game, you wouldnt be happy either. Well that’s exactly what happenned here. Spain was missing David Silva and Andres Iniesta, their 2 best wingers, plus Senna, one of their best central midfielders. Again, it’s not an excuse, it’s just the way it is.

on “parking the bus”:

anyone who is up 1-0 against the number one team in the world is going to do more defending than attacking. call it “parking the bus” if you want to. the most intense defending came after the US was up 2 goals. again, call it “parking the bus” if you want. the phrase has a bad ring to it for me because i associate it mostly with chelsea’s scared-shitless tactics against barcelona in phase 1 of the CL semifinal in which they played a 4-5-1 and hoped to escape with 0-0. the US did not do that during any moment of the match that was 0-0. i think that could be the source of some people’s overzealous rejection of the invocation of “parking the bus” to describe what was only a natural course for the US to take when beating the best team in the world. not just the best team, but arguably the most explosive scoring team in the world (though without iniesta and silva yesterday).

spain is my second favorite side, so good luck to them unless they are playing the USMNT. they’ll be back and will be a front-runner for the 2010 cup.

Ummmm it’s a small deal for a team like Spain, reigning European Champion should BATTER the USA even with their reserve team. A draw with them would be shameful but a loss is humiliating.

The USA doesn’t care about football (or soccer, as they like to call it)
I bet very few people over there even know about what happened yesterday.
They have a few amount of decent players I suppose but overall it’s not a good team. Like I said before Spain should destroy them, no matter the squad. But they lost to a country who doesn’t even give a damn about the sport their playing.

Posted from  Netherlands

Wait, wait, wait. You guys are taking it way overboard. Spain just had a bad game, that’s all. Still a massive result for the USA of course, but it doesn’t mean that Spain suddenly reverted back to their usual bottling. Their still the no.1 team in the world. And they had many injured players.

It happens. We’ll see how Spain’ll do at the World Cup, then we can talk.

Posted from  Netherlands

@Jan, I agree to a certain extent about the otherwise lack of zeal for the beautiful game here in the US. But there is a sizable minority, like myself, so I don’t really agree with your tone. Even if nobody cared, the players do, and they deserved it.

Posted from  United States

The States did pretty much park the bus after taking the lead, but to their credit left two strikers on the pitch almost to the end. But I see no shame in that. Spain ARE the far superior side, and had USA attempted open play throughout the full 90 they very probably would have been punished. Congrats to the US, they earned their win – I don’t think anyone’s arguing that they didn’t.

And for all those insinuating that this somehow means Spain aren’t all that good (I really shouldn’t even bother, but…) go ahead and take another hit off that magic stuff that makes reality so colorful. A fully fit Manchester United lost 2-0 to Fulham last season, then went undefeated in the EPL for the remainder of the season, and finished first. Upsets happen. Much more often, in fact, than 35 consecutive games undefeated on an international level. Shame we won’t get to see the Brasil-Spain match up, though.

this was a mickey mouse tournament!!!have you seen italy players,they looked like thy were in holiday already..the real thing its next year,relax…this was no more than a friendly..

Posted from  United Kingdom

Where is Anthony? When he is done crying I would like to see his reaction.

Posted from  United States

Dropping Bombs Over Madrid!!! LOL!!!!!

After reading this article, I think Anthony realizes that he is not a smart person….rather dumb actually