!!!

We did it! We are through to the final as I for one am so happy. I was jumping around like a mad man when Guiza scored, it was as he described “a beautiful moment”. Spain severly outplayed Russi the whole game, and kept the shackles on Pav and Arshavin, further proving that one, Senna has been te outstanding player for us this tournament and two, Puyol and Marchena arent as bad as some people say they are. And are midfield is a little more potent then people were whining about after the Italy match.

Watching Spain pick a part the Russian defense with some slick passing and good off the ball movement had me seriously believing we can do the same to Germany. Considering Germany were picked apart by a desimated, albeight spirited Turkey team, all the signs are there that negating Ballack and exerting pressure on Metzleder and Mertesacker will win the game for us. And here is how we will do that.

Senna will be responsible for marking Ballack when he goes forward. This should not be a problem because my faith in Senna is through the roof right now with his confident displays. Besides marking Ballack, he can drop deeper to keep Podolski hemmed in along with Sergio Ramos. Germany’s 4-3-2-1 system, which may be what we play as well, will allow for a major hole in their armor. And that is the left side. Podolski is a frail player, and has no defensive abilties, which means that Sergio Ramos, who had a great game against Russia, to move forward with aplomb and paired with Silva, torment Phillip Lahm. But pushing Lahm back constantly we will see Podolski dropping deeper to help, which means he wont see much of the ball.

I suggest deploying Senna, Xavi and Iniesta as the three central midfielders as usual. Xavi and Iniesta will be able to cover a good amount of ground with Senna behind them to mark Ballack, and they can do a number on Rolfes and Hitzelberger. The question lies in if Frings plays, in which case I would like to see Xabi Alonso on the field, as to allow for his long range shooting and wide array of passing to bypass Frings in the middle. With Senna pushed up to just behind the center circle, he will put immense pressure on the German midfield to push the ball wide. Which is fine, because Ramos and Capdevila will be able to win their battles with Podolski and Shwein something or other.

The next step is to place Silva on the right with Sergio Ramos to harry Lahm, and then to put Fabregas on the left to help Capdevila with this Shweiny guy and to make some plays for Torres and Silva up front. Torres will be more than a handful for the two German center backs, so with Silva cutting in on Lahm and Fabregas behind Torres, pulling one of Frings, Rolfes or Ballack back with him, we have ourselves a disarray in the German defence. The added benefit of having Fabregas play on the left is that Friedrich is a non-threat as an attacker and so we can leave him alone the whole game, and force Friedrich to attack if he is given space, putting more pressure on the German defence.

My hope is Marchena and Puyol can handle Klose between the two of themselves. He is not someone who will use pace or ball tricks to get a bead on them, but his movement and sixth sense for space will keep them occupied, and they will look to limit the amount of balls he gets in a scoring position because he is a deadly finisher. Iker will of course have plenty of crosses and free kicks to collect throughout the match, so it will be interesting to see how he does with those, that not being his strong suit. Speaking of which, Spain needs to work on defending set plays and corners in training. They have been horrible at it, and most of the goals conceded have been from set plays or crappy man marking on crosses, usually resulting in the Spanish defender not jumping with his man for the ball.

All in all, its a game that will be a huge test for Spain, but one they shouldnt shy away from. They should be confident that after putting away the Italians and then one of the best teams of the tournament, that they can win this whole thing on Sunday. Come on la Furia!

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

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