Friendly: England-Spain 12 Nov. (R)

Stop the nonsense, please. Our best minutes today have been with Xabi, alone, at the helm. A pity that Cesc is an overrated player, he should've buried those.

Rigaton is right in analyzing that our goals mostly don't come from short passing posession game; Spain uses posession to defend, this is something obvious since the Italy game in 2008. It would be suicidal to trust everything to only one game plan, and today has been a perfect example...
BTW, what a stinker from Silva, Busquets and Iniesta, and also Villa who only woke up in the final minutes. I want to blame the RFEF, too, they have been flogging the players to the most difficult stadiums for the past two years to play meaningless friendlies.

Well I disagree with you about Xabi, dmar, but I agree with your last statement. And now they have to travel a long ways to play Costa Rica? Couldn't they have found a team to play in Europe, or not have a game at all.

Another problem is what the f*ck Albiol is doing in the Spain team. Domínguez, Botía, Víctor Ruíz and f*ck, even BALLESTEROS deserve to be called up over some guy who doesn't even make the bench for Real Madrid.

It doesn't matter how well Alonso played, Spain's play works with 3 midfielders, one has to be a DM, something Alonso isn't, so that leaves two spots for Alonso, sadly for him, Xavi and Cesc are miles better. Then 3 forwards, who should undeniably be Villa, Silva and Iniesta.

No.

So you would rather have Torres who continually shows nothing game after game?

that spanish lot! i mean, whats all the fuss about. there not that good. only had 71 percent of the ball and 23 shots. pff, catenacio.

What worries me more than the score in last night's game, is that Villa has not been the same for a while now. For instance a Villa in normal form would have buried the goal when he went passed the goalie, he has had chances like this in a lot of games where he'd would have made them in the past.

Considering his importance to this team having in mind that Torres is still the next option that has got me worried me more going into the Euro than Xabi Alonso playing.

I would rather have a player who proved himself in competitive matches. Torres has star qualities that Soldado and Negredo will never have, that extra bit of class that can drive a team forward.

Problem with Torres is that, like Alonso, he doesn't suit Spain's play.

With the exception of Liverpool , Torres has never showed his "qualities". In Atletico Madrid he wasnt so good, but it was overrated by madrilean-spanish medias. If he had been born outside from Madrid, and didnt play in Patetico de Madrid, he wouldnt be so untouchable. He debuted too young with spanish team, but he has never showed thier qualities never. He formed a "terrorific" duo with Raul in Germany World cup qualification, and Spain had many problems to get goals. Marchena had to score a very decisive goal against Bosnia in Valencia to draw, because Torres and Raul were patetics.

About spanish ********ing style, if Garrincha were spaniard, he shouldnt play with Spain because goes against spanish style. It is better playing always by the center, and having Cesc, or Silva as striker, and Iniesta or Villa in the wings. You love homogeneity , and boring style.

Says who? That's one hell of a dogma you just made up. One which a good coach will ignore.

Xavi is marginally better. Cesc isn't better, no matter how the press tries to overrate him and, as it has been pointed out to you before, doesn't play in the same position.

The problem with Torres is that, on top of not fitting, is another incredibly overrated player. He is as dangerous to the enemy goal as I'd be with a hangover on a Sunday.
Given that Negredo has played several times for Spain and Soldado is obviously the better player, I'd give him a try.
Anyway, striker #2 for the NT must be Llorente.

Re: CONFIRMED starting lineup

F**k me, I forgot to put my bet in.

How much you win, Fool?

I agree with everything dmar has said.

The more I see cfb talk, the more I think he is out to lunch. He chewed out Alonso, yet Alonso was the best mid Spain had. And as far as Torres goes...basically, every striker besides Torres has been effective for Spain. That says alot. Plus, Torres has been in horrible form.

Xavi is miles better than Alonso, no comparison. I don't care if you are a Real Madrid/Real Sociedad/Liverpool fan, Xabi Alonso is mediocre in comparison to Xavi.

It's true, Torres is very overrated but he is still better than Soldado and Negredo.

Yeah.

I have to agree with you [even as a Real Madrid fan], Xavi is much more intelligent and composed on the ball than Xabi is. The only thing Xabi has over Xavi is his long ball distribution.

Well, I was at the game and enjoyed seeing the best Spanish team in years. You could also feel it in the atmosphere, that many of the English fans were quite worried about a possible punishment by the fury.

Not being biased at all, but I was sat in the England section, and the support was pretty crap. Hardly any singing, changing or music. All this could be heard by the small away section in the other end of the stadium. This of course changed once the goal had gone in.

Back to the game though, I had taken my dad as a suprise to see the team he had prayed for to win the WC since he was a little boy. To our shock, that is what we came to see. Nice passing of the ball, some good play by Alba, who to me looks like a great player and is very promising for the coming games. As you all saw, posession and good passing doesn't mean anything if you cant take your chances.

As mentioned earlier, Villa would have normally finished those chances, Busquettes chance was a little too relaxed, I feel he could have easily put that away rather trying to loop it in. I didn't get to see Cescs chance, as we had left 10 mins before the game to beat traffic. But he's been putting them away for Barca, so how can he miss the target when 1 on 1??

Just seems that they were going back to how they played a long time back, where it was the usual, lets pass the ball into the net game.

It's quite embrassing now. No offence to any of the teams who have beaten us since the WC, but it just doesn't feel that we are world champions. To lose so many after that win, what is going on?!

To me, I think we played better when Torres and Villa were partnered. When he came on, with not much time at the end. From what I could see (as it was the other end), Torres was hungry for it, seemed to chase it down and try get that ball back, all the others just seemed too relax for this game, like they had thought it would be an easy game.

I'm not looking forward to the Euros next year. I feel we'll become what happened to France after they turned up for the 2002 world cup and so on.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Step out of the Xavi bandwagon. For starters, Xabi is a lot more complete. He is a much better defender than you're giving him credit for, which Xavi isn't.

He may be better technically, or in the "best of" compilations, but he's not a better striker.

With all due respect. Almost everyone on this planet (except the hard core madrid fans) will disagree with you on this.
Xavi is not only better than Xabi, he is better than Zidane himself.

The fact he has not yet won a Balón de oro is baffling and at the same time not surprising.
France will never give it (again) to a Spaniard.