Spain / Ireland CONTINUED
Once Torres was in – there was depth. And now the good chances came – which unfortunately for Torres – seemed to fall in the lap of a striker who just cant finish for some reason. But they had suddenly had the depth and the width they needed. It didn’t hurt that Italy kept giving the ball away – time after time after time – in fact on Torres best chance that he tried to chip and went over the bar – it was a free kick for Italy that was inexplicably given directly to a counterattacking Spanish side – and a pass or two later (using the space created by Torres depth) Torres was in on Buffon only to miss.
I will say it as simply as I can – Spain needs space between the midfield and the forwards (if they play forwards at all) – and they need space to stretch the defense to cover wings. Without it – they are predictable – and can still overcome less talented sides – but will struggle against the best. The days of passing the ball in to the net might be over.
I felt Ireland were a bit unlucky in their loss to Croatia. All 3 Croatian goals came from ugly defensive lapses – and while they did nothing to deserve a result – on a better day might have come away with a point. Ireland are one dimentional – they aren’t good enough to be anything else. They don’t have a playmaker – so they rely on two defensive minded banks to feed a lone striker or use set plays to get a quick strike. In fact, their lone goal came on a free kick header which was poorly played by the Croatian defense.
But their own defense let them down. Ireland are never going to come back from being down a couple of goals, and very simply the defensive lapses were their undoing. But I said before the game that these are not top notch players – they are average at best. Stephen Ward – who assisted Croatia’s second goal with his swipe backpass – plays for Wolves, Dunne for Aston Villa, St Ledger for Leicester City, Keane for LA Galaxy and so on. You should get the picture. This is a side that only has one option – to defend and counter – and Im not sold that they are even good enough to pull that off.
So the big question for me is how the Del Bosque decides to set up the formation to play Ireland. If he comes out with the 6 midfielders again, I can see Ireland packing back Chelsea style and clogging up the middle. I think this plays right in to Irelands hands. I would much rather see him start Torres and Navas and a left wing minded player – and stretch them out.
This is the big uglies vs the artists. I just cannot come up with a way that Ireland is able to stay with Spain for 90 minutes – especially given the fact that they really need a win and not a draw. Im willing to give the goal and a half here, because if the first one comes early enough in the game – Ireland will be forced out of their shape and then the avalanche might start. Spain -1.5 -110 for 2 units. Most likely result Spain 3-0.
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