FIFA World Cup 2010: Things We Learnt From Spain’s Victory Over Germany
Spain won with a score line of one goal to nil, three games in a row. This win over Germany secured Spain’s place in the final game of the tournament. There are a few things that were learnt from the Spanish Victory.
The semi finals had two teams that had previously lifted the trophy, those teams were, Uruguay and Germany. But with both those teams losing out to Holland and Spain, there will be a new World Champion, no matter what team wins, it would have won the trophy for the first time.
The Germans did what almost every other team before them did, and that was to defend against the Spanish and try to hit them on the counter attack. Considering the fact that Joachim Low’s team is fatal on the counter it seemed appropriate to approach the match in that manner. Unfortunately for the Germans, Spain hardly ever gave up possession which reduced Germany’s opportunities to attack. It seemed as though Low showed Spain far too much respect by asking his team to sit back. On the rare occasions when Germany did try and attack it ended up with a Spanish chance to score a goal.
Spain have developed an anti, anti possession style of play. The anti possession style of play states that you let your opponents keep the ball for as long as they want as long as you don’t let them score. Spain on the other hand have developed a super possession style of play, in which they keep the ball for what seems like forever and in doing so kept the opposition from doing anything. Spain’s consistent one nil wins are proof of the fact, that Spain have gone from being an exciting team to a winning team. The Spanish players don’t look for dramatic, killer passes but instead play the safe ball just to retain better possession. There won’t be any complaints from Spanish fans all over the world if Spain manage to win against Holland in the same manner. There may be a few complaints from the Dutch fans, but who wouldn’t complain if their team lost in the final game of the World Cup.
There is no reason for the Dutch to not deploy the same tactics that every other team before them has tried to use against the Spanish. But the Dutch may be the only team capable of shutting out the Spanish attack. With Nigel De Jong and Mark Van Bommel, Holland have a tough, tackling defense minded midfield, that has the capacity to nullifying the Spanish heart. The only weakness that Holland have in defense is their keeper, Maarten Stekelenburg. If he can avoid the same errors that he made against Uruguay then they just might be able to keep the Spanish at bay for the entire match.
The most important thing that we have learnt though, is that you can’t doubt Paul. Paul the octopus has successfully predicted the winner for each of the games Germany has played in the World Cup so far. When Paul picked Spain to win over Germany, the German zoo keeper who looks after Paul, laughed at the time the prediction was made before the match, saying that Paul had finally lost it. But it was Paul who was doing all the laughing after the match. So in the third place play off between Germany and Uruguay if Paul ends up picking Uruguay to win, then it is safe to say you should go ahead and bet your house on it.
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