Match 16: Spain v. Switzerland :: Post Match Thread [R]

Are you kidding? I just went to the tape and watched this "incident." Silva fell down. All by himself.

It wasn't offside, and it wasn't a foul. If anything, if that had not gone in Pique should have been called for a penalty for fouling the Swiss player.

haven't you found an image of a bull...

Our cows also play football btw [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVRivrXBO5Q[/ame]

Accept for the fact that Switzerland won.

How about we all just give credit where it's do? Spain couldn't get past the Swiss defense, but the Swiss got past Spain's, and beat them. It may not have been pretty, but by God they did it.

well...
Lesson of football by Switzerland, lesson of passing by Spain.

lesson of bunker and hoofing? Lesson of playing like bolton? Is that the lesson?

Yes , bunkering is also football , and Spain should do it sometimes , and not believe that they are better than the best Brazil . The question is that Spain hasnt created many chances , and the most important , hasnt scored. In my opinion , it is time to play more vertical and faster stile , and not doing hundred and hundred pases , and it is time to give sometimes posesion to oponent to make counterattacks.

The lesson is that even for all Spain's possession, passing, and shots at the goal, they failed miserably.

Against Ghana and Serbia we will see how good they really are.

We don't have the players to play that kind of style. Possession is our game, for better or for worse. Our speed of play is too slow, it was faster at the EUROs. There we only played with holding mid. Here, having 2 DMids plus another center mid against a defensive minded team is not the way to go. I hate put blame on a coach because I think it's mostly a copout but Del Bosque has been outcoached consistently since he took over as coach.

Switzerland's playing is far from the quality of Inter's and take a look at Brazil's goals against N.Korea. And yes, I'm a Barca fan

Anyway, if teams keep playing with bonkers like this, this WC is gonna be the most boring ever

did it seem to anyone else that sergio ramos was getting too excited the whole game? he kept trying to make runs up the side with cute little moves, and ended up leaving his side vulnerable.

Sergio Ramos always plays like that.

i know, but i'm not sure if it's conducive to spain's success

Ramos' play had nothing to do with the Swiss scoring. If anything our fullbacks lack of good wing play was a factor in not providing good scoring opportunities. If our team is going to be so central minded then the fullbacks must be actively involved in the offense to provide width. That didn't happen this game.

I think Spain was just unlucky. It wasn't "their day" as Del Bosque put it. The Swiss managed to snatch a historical win and must be congratulated for that. However, Spain was far superior throughout the whole match and should've managed at least to draw level.

They will be able to pick themselves up from this and beat Honduras and Chile.

Enough with Spain got unlucky business already sure the was a crossbar but the Swiss also were unlucky in that regard witha ball off the psot. Spain lsot because they have next to no creativity in the final third ...

Obviously plays a different style than Germany but what I was alluding to was the lack of aggression by Spain in the final third that both Germany and Argentina demonstrated.

Spain reminds me of the hockey team that loses with 50 shots on goal with their opponents getting 10-15 but what few mention is that many of those 50 shots are from far away with little to no chance to go in. Maybe 10-15 of those 50 are actually decent chances.

Boring game, enough said.

In general terms, the european NT's are very boring to watch so far, except Germany.

fixed

In general terms, all the teams have been very boring except the Germans and Argentina today. So many keeper mistake's and low tempo games. I don't like this WC sofar.

It was not just Xabi Alonso's shot at the crossbar, Spain had other chances throughout the match. Unlike the Spaniards, the Swiss were incredibly efficient up front but that doesn't happen in every game.

Surely, it wasn't the best performance we've seen from them but they're unmistakingly good. It's quite baffling you should say they have "next to no creativity in the final third" when they have the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and Silva, not to mention Fabregas on the bench.

Spain should be able to easily pick themselves up from this. They're clearly contenders.

Chile always play attacking and entertainy football, it's not boring like the euro and afro NTs.

Even if we loose, like in Brazilia (4:2, what a match!)

@Everyone who thinks Spain "just got unlucky" or "outplayed the Swiss" or similar crap...

Don't watch the ball, don't watch Spanish players elegantly receive passes and return them. Instead watch the movement off the ball, the flow of the game. Spain didn't attack, they passed the ball from one wing to the other, wasting a lot of time, looking for holes in the defense that weren't there.
That's not an attacking style of play, it's probing. And from what I've seen Spain really sucks at probing.

When I was watching, the analogy to chess pieces didn't occur to me, but in hindsight I must say it is quite fitting.
At the time, though, it reminded me more of a gatling gun against a tank. And some people here seem to favour the gatling gun because of the higher rate of fire. Predominantly the same people who think the game was boring, probably because they don't understand that the field is a lot larger than a 5 meter radius around the ball, and that football is played on the whole pitch, at all times.

Spain lost because Switzerland outplayed them. And they didn't even need the ball for that, because Spain were kind (stupid) enough to pass the ball from one side to the other and back without posing much of a threat inbetween.
You know, I would buy all that "Spain played attacking football" crap if they'd actually had more chances. As far as I recall, Spain had two dangerous efforts on goal; one saved by Benaglio, one saved by the crossbar. Oh, and know what? Switzerland had two dangerous efforts as well - one saved by the post, the other one a converted 100% chance.

Kudos to Switzerland for capturing a deserved victory.
Kudos to Spain for wasting enough time passing the ball around to not concede a second goal.

Oh and kudos to them for the display of sportsmanship at the end of the game. Y'know, all that shirt swapping and stuff. European champions, my ass.

And Switzerland never will be.

Spain didnt win Euro posesing the ball . Spain won Eurocup with counteratack goals , and a good defence with a great Sena. Now it isnt Sena , defensively is weaker, and Castilla is a disaster.Spain play with two defensive mids , because without them , Spain would suffer a lot , because spaniard defenders are mediocre players .On the other hand , you cant play with Iniesta,Cesc,Xavi and Silva , all of them in the field , because they play more or less similarly . You need diferente types of players. Playing posesing the ball is a stupidity if you dont create chances , and Spain actually dont create many. In my opinion Spain actually has enough players to play diferently and more vertical.

Finally , if Torres doesnt play decently in the next match , they should be the third forward . His minutes against Switzerland were patethtics , and he has one of the poorest rate of goals with Spain between forwards that have played in the last 50 years with Spain.