Spain the reigning European and World Champions were last night unceremoniously dumped out of the 2014 World Cup after being out thought, outplayed and outworked by a determined, attractive and worthy winner in Chile.
Los Rojas were utterly insipid in defeat and the manner of the performance will have stunned many a viewer across the world. This was a team who had conceded just 4 goals in their last 2 tournaments but yet in Brazil all they could manage in 2 games was a penalty followed by 7 unanswered strikes to both Holland and Chile and their demise could hardly have been more pronounced and painful. The post-mortem in defeat will reveal that this was a team devoid of motivation, of energy and of the necessary will and courage to even make it out of their group, let alone defend the title and while there are sure to be casualties, it would be wrong to describe the Spaniards as an aging team who had simply ran one race too many. Yes Xavi, Casillas and Xabi Alonso look to be finished on the international stage but they still have an absolute wealth of talent and the fact they were unable to find a formula for this tournament rests much on the shoulders of Del Bosque who meddled with tiki-taka and ended up with something stuck in the middle of 2 different philosophies and the result was that they ended up playing without any kind of structure or blend. The decision to elevate Diego Costa to a central striking role was expected but given his injury plagued finale to the league season, it was borderline insanity for Del Bosque to put his trust in a man who has yet to score for his country and who seemed completely spent following a gruelling campaign with Atletico Madrid. Xabi Alonso was an absolute shadow of his former self while Fernando Torres was never going to be the answer as a second half substitute and the selection of Casillas always seemed to be dubious given his lack of game time in the past 18 months and he too is no longer the player he used to be. The Spanish inquisition will be long and painful and questions such as why was younger blood like Koke not introduced when clearly the Xabi/Xavi combination was no longer what it was and why did they give up on their “false 9” tactic that had served them so well in Euro 2012? For Del Bosque, it is expected that he will step down along with at least another 4 of his squad. Los Rojas badly need an injection of new blood and pace and they are sure to return to Euro 2016 a stronger unit than the one so badly exposed this summer. And for Bo, their failure to find the back of the net cost me a lovely treble and I was cursing them from about 50 minutes onwards. They never looked like scoring and their defeat will leave a bitter taste for many who still believed in what was a truly great team but this was a highly positive result having backed Chile to emerge from this group in 2 of my pre tournament acca’s although I must confess I did not expect Spain to be eliminated at the expense of the Dutch. If they had scored a consolation it would have been perfect for me but such was the tepidness of the Spanish performance, it never looked likely. In the early game, Holland overcame a determined and unfortunate Australian side 3 goals to 2. The Aussies who had held a second half lead to defy expectations but with both the Robin’s finding the net again as tipped on the blog yesterday, they fought back to seal their qualification and send the Aussies packing. The Dutch, having conquered Spain will have their eyes on the big prize but they still need to improve if they are to seriously challenge for the title following a rather poor display against valiant Aussies. In the final game, as tipped on my blog, Croatia smashed Cameroon 4.0 after I had tipped them to win -1 goal at 15/8 odds. I posted a prediction for 3.0 which was only undone by Mandzukic’s late 4th although his first strike did bring up my Anytime Goalscorer Double of Robben and Mario Mandzukic at 3/1. Overall it was a pretty decent day for my long term bet’s and my anytime double came in to make it 2 out of 2 in this market. My goalscorer tipping has been excellent and long may it continue. I will post my preview for today’s action shortly and we should be in for some crackers with England against Uruguay a do or die match for both while Colombia against Ivory Coast should prove entertaining and Japan will be hopeful of seeing off Greece in the late game. Comments are closed.
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