Penalty Prescience

Who knew Cesc was a regular Miss Cleo?

Built in retirement plan: I see a 900 number in your future.

After having a premonition, in which it was revealed to him that he would give Spain victory in a penalty shootout, Fabregas convinced Vincente del Bosque to allow him to take the fifth spot kick, instead of the second, as originally planned.  A line-up that obviously worked much better for Espana than Paulo Bento’s Portugal.

So, in the overall contest between two somewhat petulant former Arsenal players of average height, Fabregas came out on top, keeping Spain’s hope of a third consecutive finals win alive. 

Why Ronaldo shirked from taking his pen earlier is still unknown.  The player claims that Bento decided the line-up, though somehow I remain skeptical of the line-up being the result of some dictatorial determination from the manager.  If CR7 had wanted to take his penalty earlier, he would’ve been granted the opportunity to do so.  Instead, he wanted to hold out for the last spot, when, in reality, we all know that the first and fourth penalties are the most important.  

Note to Ronaldo: you can only get the glory if you take the pen, or, better yet, take your chance to put it away at the end of 90 as Messi would’ve.

But, while we laud Fabregas and discuss Ronaldo, it has been perhaps overlooked that Sergio Ramos’ cheeky take a la Pirlo was the real clincher for Spain.  Taking the fourth kick, he delivered where Bruno Alves faltered and provided Fabregas with the opportunity to secure it for Spain without having to see Ronaldo step up to the plate as it were.  And, on a lesser debated point, was the change up between Alves and Nani for the third kick an intentional ploy to confuse Casillas or just an inadvertent miscommunication of epic proportions?

In any event, Spain will need a more cutting edge to their tiki-totalitarianism against a quite adventurous and attacking Italian side.  To leave it to penalties again, well, would be a waste. 

The Descent Into Middle Age

Spain were "pedestrian, inevitable and increasingly bloated in the middle," not at all dissimilar to  the current pathology of the American baby boomer.


Sometimes a win just isn't good enough. If you are the best in the world, you're supposed to do it with Liberace's flair and the jaw-dropping brilliance of Bobby Fisher - you're supposed to do it, well, like Germany. 

You mean you didn't enjoy the build up?

No longer rosy cheeked wonders riding a wave of exquisite passing and fine finishing, the Seleccion have lost their cutting edge, firmly in middle age and nearing over the hill status by the minute (or, so they are in the minds of their critics). 


Alas, David Villa is out and Fernando Torres no longer provides the attacking edge necessary to bring Spain's tiki-taka to its efficacious end. Villa's absence in particular has largely been overlooked this tournament, but it is in my mind the most auspicious. The leading scorer in Espana's 2008 Euro campaign, Villa's exploitation of the opposition's defensive weaknesses has not been unmatched by any of the no. 9's (real, false or otherwise) employed by del Bosque in this campaign. 

C'mon, Aragaones never had to deal with this ish back in the day.

The victory over France was banal to be sure, but they were playing to their personnel. To press for a second goal (even whilst retaining possession) requires a real attacking presence, which, unfortunately for the neutral spectator, is not something Spain have on offer now. 


Still best in the world (until someone else can prove otherwise on the pitch), they are just not as good as they were in 2008 or 2010. That is what is at the heart of the criticism of the current Spanish side, but, then again, no one said getting old was easy.

The Trouble with Tiki-Taka

It’s true: you can have too much of a good thing.  

Beautiful and intricate passing ad nauseam can give way to complacency and a lack of forward thinking, lulling sides into a false sense of security, as they knock it around the midfield, and often having them pay the price for their profligacy. 

Spain succumbed to the very real perils of tiki-taka against Croatia.  They were “a parody of themselves” in the words of Rob Smyth, holding possession for the vast majority of the game but creating very few quality chances from it.  So long as they held the ball, you got the sense that they were able to trick themselves into believing that they had complete control of the game.  It was, in fact, an apocryphal control. 

Del Bosque's men left themselves to be exposed on the counter throughout the match, just as they were on the back of Luka Modric’s exceptional cross to Ivan Rakitic (resulting in a sublime Casillas save).  The uncomfortable reality was that the reigning European and World Champions were still in by only the thinnest of margins.  And the more they passed, the more their forward movement stagnated and their shape narrowed; the play largely confined to a small swath of the pitch around the half-way line as La Roja pondered their next short pass.

Gotta keep possession.

What can be done to remedy their wanton ways?  Well, for starters, Arbeloa and Silva need to make way for Cesc and Navas, which would then allow Iniesta to play in his Barca role instead of being stranded wastefully on the wing.  Arbeloa is by some measure the worst player on the Spanish side, and Silva has been ineffectual throughout.  And then there is El Nino, for whom a suspect Irish defense is apparently the only opposition against which he can prove effective.  


Seriously, Fernando Llorente must be wondering what he has to do to get a whiff of the pitch at this point.  And, while Torres is certainly not good enough to produce on his own, if del Bosque insists on giving him another run out, at least he would benefit from the complementary wing play of Navas and an opportunity to play off of a false no. 9 like Fabregas this time around. 

The French brand of tiki-taka certainly didn’t rival the Spanish form in technical accomplishment (there were far to many touches in between passes), but it was even more crippling.  Against the already elimintated Swedes, Lorent Blanc’s side lost the plot even while enjoying possession for large swathes of the first forty-five.  Their build-up was painfully protracted and lethargic.  Yes, their defense was (is) shambolic (how Mexes ever got to this level is far beyond my scope of comprehension) but had they been able to seize the opportunities their possession presented, the scoreline may have allowed them to withstand Zlatan Ibrahimovic's brilliant strike with some composure intact.

The result of a somewhat more direct approach.

Moderation is the key.  There needs to be a balance between a direct line to the goal and meandering possession without a real end.  

Whether Spain or France will heed these lessons remains to be seen.  If nothing else, it will be difficult for either side to dominate possession in the manner they've been able to do so heretofore, given the tactics of the other, and that may very well be a good thing.  

P.S. For those still unsure of what constitutes good tiki-taka, here's a little how-to courtesy of Barca.  Phil Jackson was right: it is all about the triangles. 

Sublime Spaniards and an Irish Exit

Well, one thing is settled in Group C: Ireland will be going home on Monday. The rest, in keeping with current Euro 2012 trends, is still up in the air.

Spain dispatched with Ireland in a manner so clinical and relentless that even the most hardened fans of the Boys in Green were begging to be put out their second half misery come Silva's second for Spain...and that was only four minutes into the half.  You can't fault the Irish (or their fans, the best in the tournment imho); however, with the class differential between the two sides was somewhat akin to the divergence in stock price between Apple and Blackberry, and being down only one goal at halftime was considered a flattering scoreline for Giovanni Trapattoni's men.

Point in fact: a sub-par Xabi Alonso completed more passes in the first half than the entire Irish side.

And this wasn't the ineffectual possession of the Dutch variety.  Of 27 Spanish shots, 15 were on target, eliciting a number of excellent saves from Irish stalwart, Shay Given.  A special shout out goes out to one Fernando Torres, who put an abysmal opener and shambolic season at Chelsea behind him to reclaim form unseen since Roman Abramovich played Count Dracula to Torres' Mina Murphy (and, if you haven't gotten the full metaphor yet, Vincente del Bosque assumes the role of van Helsing's gang in this set-up).

Del Bosque's brilliance was on full display here.  While some questioned his decision to leave out Fabregas, del Bosque rightly recognized the great fortune of the Irish match-up.  What better conditions could there be for your crestfallen hit man to regain his killer instinct than against the weakest team in your group?  Not only would Xavi and Iniesta be able to hold court in the midfield, providing quality service unseen since Heidi Fleiss' Hollywood heyday, but literally Torres' only responsibility would be to put the ball on target.  And where El Nino had eyes for anything but goal in the first game, he firmly fixed his gaze upon it this time around, suddenly jolted from his semi-catatonic stupor after his fourth minute strike, he seemed a man fully in control of his own destiny on the brace.

It is all about confidence, after all. Even the man he replaced in the starting XI could not help but show his delight at his compatriot's return to form.

A Tale of Two First Touches

How much can a first touch reveal?  Let’s look at the cases of Antonio di Natale and Fernando Torres.  Both subs in Sunday’s headline game, the two came on to very different ends.


Di Natale put in work, making a meal of the space left by the Spanish defense with a deft first touch.

Exhibit A

Torres made a mess of his first foray.  Beaten in the box from a hard charging Gigi Buffon, whose forceful field play denied Torres a redemptive strike.  Yes, you read that right: in a one-on-one, Gigi came out on top, no hands involved.

Exhibit B

Both moves emblematic of their greater career trends: the ascendant Italian and crest fallen Spaniard.  The contrast could not have been more stark. 

Capello's Claim: Brazil Better than Spain?

In mid-November, England traveled to Doha, Qatar to face the boys from Brazil in an international friendly, which while unremarkable in the scoreline (1-0 to Brazil), was nonetheless notable for the locale (obvi money talks...though the Three Lions better hope that the idiot that negotiated their fee isn't in charge of their 2018 bid [score there: 400k v. 4 mil for the Canarinhos]).

Anyways, the main takeaway of the evening brought to us by Don Capello, who claimed in his post-match commentary that this Brazilian team was better than FIFA World #1 and current European Champions, Spain. This proclimation might not be so surprising given that his team was just on the losing end of the most comprehensive 1-0 defeat in recent memory (England managed perhaps one shot on goal the entire game), but the English manager's remarks highlighted another less publicized reality.

In the past 20 years or so, nutritional standards have improved significantly in Brazil. Thus, as Dunga has pointed out, national team players and the population at large have reaped the physical rewards of proper nutrition (i.e. increased physical strength and stature). No longer are the Selecaos merely a group of fleet footed wonder boys; they now have the athletic prowess and power to complement their fantastic footwork.

Tops

Spain has finished first in FIFA's world rankings for the second year in a row. Congrats!