Spain vs. Argentina Friendly: Coach Vicente del Bosque Not Perturbed By 1-4 Loss to Argentina
Spain won their opening fixture of the Euro 2012 qualification campaign against Liechtenstein by 4-0. Hence, they went to Argentina with their morale high enough to beat a struggling Argentina side. However, the results were a little shocking for the team, as they lost the match by a rather huge margin: 4-1.
This was Spain’s third loss since 2006, as they have only lost against USA in the Confederations Cup and against Switzerland in the 2010 World Cup. However, this loss came at a time when the Spanish team was having a great time in international football, and there was hardly any competition left for the reigning European and World champions.
Argentina, on the other hand, dropped out of the World Cup after a poor performance against Germany. Also, there were many problems faced by the Argentinean side, as their young players were not performing well for their national side. Amidst all these problems, Argentina faced Spain, and no one expected them to beat the world champions, even in their home ground.
However, the match started well for Argentina. Sergio Batista, the new caretaker manager of Argentina who replaced Diego Maradona after the World Cup, was playing his first match against a big team. Therefore, he took no chances and played all available players against the world champions. He also gave a call-up to some players who were neglected by Maradona for Argentina’s World Cup squad, including Gabriel Milito, Javier Zanetti, Esteban Cambiasso and Ever Banega.
On the contrary, Vicente Del Bosque was giving rest to some of his players. Xavi, Sergio Ramos, Fernando Torres, Iker Casillas and Pedro were sitting as substitutions on the Spanish bench. However, the team played by Del Bosque was still good enough to challenge the likes of Argentina.
The Argentineans outplayed their opponents in the midfield from the start of the match. There was an intent shown by Argentinean midfielders as they did not give enough space to the Spanish midfielders, who had little answer to their onslaught. Spain were soon on the back-foot, as Lionel Messi and Gonzalo Higuain found the net in the opening fifteen minutes of the match. After that, Carlos Tevez also found himself on the scoring sheet in the 34th minute of the match. Fernando Llorente found a goal for Spain in the last ten minutes, but Argentinean substitute Sergio Aguero scored a fourth goal in the injury-time of the match. Thus, the Spanish side lost the match by a big margin, which would be their biggest loss since 2006.
Vicente Del Bosque remained optimistic about his team’s result. He said that his team has won against a weak team, Liechtenstein, but they have to learn to play against big teams as well. He remained happy with his squad’s efforts to pull the goals back, but also said that his team had a lot of chances in the match, which meant that they had a chance to change the final result of the game.
Spain worked hard in order to pull the goals back, as they were denied three times in the match. Therefore, Cesc Fabregas, who played in place of Xavi, and Santi Cazorla, who came as a substitute, both agreed with their coach’s comments. Both players agreed that they had created more chances than Argentina, and they did not deserve to lose by this margin. Both players were of the view that the outcome could have been different if the Spanish players had not hit the post three times in the match.
Nevertheless, Spain lost the match, which is also a wakeup call for their team. On the other hand, Lionel Messi seemed pleased with his team’s performance, especially the way they controlled the game in the midfield. This is a great result for Argentina, who needed a big win like this in order to get themselves out of the post-World Cup blues.
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