Two Artists [Morientes and Villa] … but Spain Suffer

So our Valencia boys did more than ok in a tense encounter at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Goals from Valencia strikers David Villa and Fernando Morientes (click on their names to see videos of their goals) lifted Spain past Denmark 2-1.


But the game wasn’t Spain’s best performance. Needing a win to revive their hopes of making the ‘08 finals, Spain looked to be in control after going 2-0 up before halftime against a Denmark side that had been reduced to 10 men.
But nerves took over when the Danes pulled a goal back at the start of the second half and Spain ended up hanging on for the final whistle as the Danes laid siege to their area in the closing minutes.

According to The Guardian Unlimited’s Spanish scribe Sid Lowe, Spain lacked killer instinct.

‘Somewhere in the Spanish football psyche, a sense of superiority coexists uneasily with a deep inferiority complex. They are convinced that they play better football than anyone else, that they are technically superior, that their talent puts them amongst the very best in the world, that their style is the only legitimate way of playing the game. But they are equally convinced that things will conspire to defeat them: a referee, bad luck, some nasty thug of an opponent, their own inability, as the coach Luis Aragonés moaned after the World Cup, “to compete”.’

For a country with as much footballing talent as Spain, it boggles the mind they haven’t won an international tournamentt since Euro 1964. Is it the coaching? A footballing philosophy grounded in entertainment above defensive play and physical brutality? Or is it that they’re plain not good enough?

Whatever it is, Spain continues on this Wednesday against Iceland, hoping to move up the standings in Group F, where they currently lie 4th.

Category: Team News

Tags: David Villa, Fernando Morientes, Sid Lowe, Spain, Spain La Liga, Team News

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