2010 World Cup: Chile v Spain half time report
Chile 0 Spain 2
One of the most intruiging final group matches of the World Cup has lived up to its billing as Spain cruised to a two goal lead over ten man Chile.
David Villa opened the scoring, before Andreas Iniesta expertly doubled the lead, Chile started to lose their discipline towards the end of the half and Marco Estrada was given his marching orders.
Spain started where they left off from against Honduras as they looked for an early goal, and the usual prolific Fernando Torres wasted two early chances. They were half chances at best, but for a striker of Torres stature, he would have expected to put at least one of them away.
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 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.
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 for 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 Spain 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.
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 Chile reduced to ten men, the game seems all but over – hopefully they can keep their discipline in the second half so they have players available for the next round, that’s if they make it.
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