Villa a Good Bet for Golden Boot
Spain have made it through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup after a hard fought victory over rivals Portugal, and this promotes striker David Villa's chances at winning the Golden Boot.
A lone goal from Villa was enough to see the Spaniards over the line in a match that could have gone either way. Both sides found it difficult to stretch out spells of pressure they had during the game and the match could have easily gone Portugal's way with a different run of the ball.
Spain did not live up to the pre-match comments of Fernando Torres who said the side are nearing their best. However, this does not really matter as Spain have now taken their place as one of the eight teams left at the World Cup.
There were still many positive elements to the way that Spain played and they will be looking to take these forward and into their last eight clash against Paraguay. They will be heavy favourites for the match but it is important that complacency does not rear its ugly head.
Spain
Spain will be pleased by the fact that they got the job done. The side have a number of talented and flamboyant players but the result was their main objective, not the way they achieved it. This performance proved that Spain can scrap out a result just as easily as they can when they storm to victory.
David Villa and Fernando Torres will both be very frustrated because they could have put on a better performance. They found the ball at their feet on a number of occasions but they seemed to be a little flustered in front of goal, which is not something we are used to with the Spanish team.
In terms of creating chances they did just enough and defensively they looked very solid. They will have to up their game for the final games of the World Cup but everything is looking good. All they have to do is tweak a couple of areas and they will stand a very good chance of lifting this trophy.
Portugal
There was a great deal of huff and puff from Portugal but no end product. They were not able to get key player Cristiano Ronaldo on the ball enough and he was promptly marked out of the game whenever he was in possession.
Portugal will be very downbeat about the way they gave a goal away. It was scrappy and the goalkeeper should have held onto Villa's first shot or pushed it to the side. By pushing the ball back into Villa's path the Portuguese goalkeeper was asking for trouble and the striker obliged him.
Portugal look like a very talented team and they will go back to the drawing board to start work on their European 2012 qualification campaign. They need to fine tune a few areas because they struggled to create fluent chances in attack and they have made some very basic errors in defence over the course of the tournament.
Advice
Spain could easily have crumbled yesterday against a very good opponent but the point is that they did just what was needed. This will give them confidence heading into their quarter-final match and you should be more confident in them at least reaching the final.
David Villa is now a good outside bet to win the golden boot because many will fancy him to score against Paraguay. However, the defence has yet to be really tested under intense pressure and this is what you should keep in mind if Spain make it into the semi-final and ultimately the final.
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