2010 World Cup: Chile v Spain full time report
Spain 2 Chile 1
One of the most intruiging final group matches of the World Cup lived up to its billing as Spain and Chile fought out a competitive battle in Group H.
All the action happened in the first half where goals from David Villa and Andreas Iniesta won the game for the Spanish, Marco Estrada was given his marching orders for Chile on the stroke of half time, which meant for a pretty non-existent second half despite Rodrigo Millar pulling a goal back for the South Americans.
It looked as it would be a long night for the Chileans early on, but as the half wore on, the more the lively South American’s improved.
The energy in their play was simply outstanding, as they chased and harried the Spanish midfield into mistakes and looked a threat when in the final third.
Their best chance of the half fell to Mark Gonzalez, who should have done better following a great interchange between Alexis Sanchez and Jorge Valdivia.
Chile continued to press and with Spain on the ropes, a horrendous error from goalkeeper Claudio Bravo gifted the European champions the opening goal. A hopeful ball forward was chased down by Torres, and Bravo, with his defender seemingly in charge of the situation, came charging out of his goal and cleared the ball right into the path of Villa, who expertly curled the ball into the empty net from 40 yards.
The goal seemed to settle Vincent Del Bosque’s team down and with Chile so gung-ho in attack, Spain started the pick off their opponents at will and with seven minutes of the half remaining the game was ended as a contest, as Iniesta doubled the lead and Chile were reduced to ten men.
Brilliant play on the left wing from Villa created space his Barcelona teammate to glide into the box and brilliantly stroke the ball into the bottom corner, in fairness they were cueing up as Chile had yet again pushed far too many men forward. The one attacking Spanish player that was not in the box behind Iniesta was Torres, who was lay in a heap 30 yards behind the play.
With the cameras focusing on the Spanish celebrations, a second yellow card was shown to Estrada, who had accidently tripped the Liverpool forward off the ball. It seemed a very harsh decsion.
The South Americans towards the end of the half started to rattle into challenges and were lucky to finish with only ten players. Waldo Ponce was the guiltiest party as his reckless challenge on Alonso could have left the Real Madrid star with a broken ankle.
With everyone thinking the second half couldn’t possibly live up to the excitement of the first, Rodrigo Millar, on as a half-time sub, curled a deflected effort in off Gerard Pique with 47 minutes played.
The comeback never really materialised though as Chile seemed to be happy to sit back and hope that Switzerland failed to score against Honduras.
The remaining 40 minutes passed with Spain happy to keep the ball and Chile happy to let them have the ball, and with that the two teams qualified for the second round of the World Cup as the Swiss could only manage a 0-0 draw with the Hondurans.
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