Football Withdrawal Syndrome Kicks In

From Javier...

Two full days ahead without matches. Get ready for the shivers of football withdrawal syndrome. What will we do? Well look at repetitions I guess and YouTube videos of best goals to date.

First let me say how relieved I am at Spain's performance tonight. In spite of playing one of the toughest defense in the world, the players kept their calm and maintained their strategy and tempo. Once the Portuguese were a goal behind from the billiard-like passing Spanish goal they really did not have an answer. I did not count a single shot on the Spanish goal from the 1-0. It must be so frustrating to be one goal behind and not be able to get possession. A few notes about the game:

• In a previous entry I speculated about Spain that the "mental toughness of this new generation is very different".... and this was proved tonight. While I was close to despair early in the second half imagining how tragedy would play out, these guys kept their cool, kept possession, kept their passing game. And when they were 1-0 up they did not lose focus, rather they even sharpened it more.
• The change of Llorente on for Torres was brilliant; it added that extra spice needed to wear down the Portuguese defense and make their chances of a mistake just that extra bit more probable..... and the Portuguese changes were a disaster.....Spanish coach definitely outperformed Portuguese coach tonight
• Much was made of the Portuguese defense, but the ability of the Spaniards to recover the ball quickly and frequently in threatening positions was admirable; the Portuguese were very frustrated
• Much has been said that the Spaniards have weak physical form and lose steam over the game; tonight I saw no problems with form and rather at the end the Spanish form was better than the Portuguese
• Spain had luck, all the luck it missed against Switzerland
• Still Spain has a lot of possession and not enough effectiveness
• Casillas seems a little bit shaky....they will test from 25/30 yards in the next game
• With hindsight, the Swiss medicine was the best pill that a Doctor could order for the hyped Spanish players - but only with hindsight!

So we have this weekend two big World Cup classics:

Argentina - Germany (just like 2006)

Netherlands - Brazil (a common feature of World Cups)

And two other games: Uruguay - Ghana and Spain - Paraguay.

Four of the teams speak Spanish. Not sure if that has any relevance, rather an indicator of how well South America is doing in this World Cup. Spain has never had it so good to make it to the semifinals...... well, that is what we thought in 2002 and crashed against the South Koreans. But if Spain plays like today and Paraguay plays like today there is no doubt Spain will make it. I favour Uruguay over Ghana, Argentina over Germany and Brazil over Netherlands. We will see what the Simulator says over the next two days.

In the meantime, go cold turkey!