Will Germany beat Spain on Wednesday night?
Will the Germans then beat Holland in the final on Sunday, July 11 ?
On Saturday night, after winning obvious bets on Germany and Spain, I was thinking : FABREGAS MUST START! If he doesn’t start Fabregas, Spain will be 2-0 down by the time he comes on and the game will be over.
Poor old Maradona. Germany were hammering Argentina and he didn’t know what to do. He could not change that quarter-final. Because he is not a coach.
Joachim Low is a very good coach with a fluent team who scored four goals against Australia, four against England, and then thumped Argentina 4-0.
Paraguay gave Spain a really good test in the most dramatic game so far.
When Pique grabbed Cardozo’s arm with both hands, Guatemalan ref Carles Batres gave a penalty. Cardoso shot to Casillas’s right and the Real Madrid keeper made a cool save.
Almost immdiately David Villa was spurting into the box at the other end. Panicking defender Antolin Alcaraz stuck an arm across Villa and brought the striker down. Penalty given !
Xabi Alonso smashed it in, as you would expect. But the ref ordered a re-take for encroachment. Second time, Justo Villar, the Paraguay captain, dived to his left and parried the penalty kick.
Cesc Fabregas raced onto the rebound and touched the ball just beyond Villar, whose arm brought Fabregas down with a thud. The loose ball went to Sergio Ramos, his shot was kicked off the line by Da Silva.
The replay showed five bodies directly between the referee and Fabregas being fouled. If the ref can’t see it, if he’s not sure, he can’t give another penalty.
Three penalties have been taken and the ball’s been in the net once but the score is still 0-0 and there’s still half an hour to go.
FABREGAS increased the tempo of Spain’s passing, which was needed.
He did the same when he came on in a previous game when the Barcelona players looked tired and slow in the first half. Short passing usually needs a brisk tempo to be penetrating.
Spain created the decisive move with ten minutes left. When sub Pedro was brought down in centrefield by Santana, Fabregas took the free-kick quickly to Busquets, wide left to Iniesta, then to Fabregas, to Xavi, into Iniesta’s run, he swerved left and passed neatly right into Pedro’s run, and the kid’s low shot across the keeper smacked the left hand post and rebounded to David Villa, who fired against the other post.
The ball bounced across goal and hit the left post and went in for the only goal of the game.
Time of goal : 82.01.
Tremendous effort by Paraguay. Well done.
Clearly, Fabregas plays very well with David Villa. The striker is cute and finds space, while the playmaker is brainy and sees space.
In my view, those two need to be together from the kick-off against Germany.
All along I’ve had a gut feeling that Fabregas will play a major role in the final stages of this World Cup. What I’ve seen in the last week supports that view.
I gather there’s a lot of stuff in the papers today about Torres being so obviously off the pace that Spain are playing with 10 men.
It’s time to own up. It’s time for Spain to admit : we can’t beat Germany with 10 men. We might not beat them with 11 men but we certainly can’t beat them with 10.
It’s time for Del Bosque to give the Ozil role to Fabregas.
That decision might win Spain’s first World Cup.
Although, with their dodgy defence, winning the World Cup is a big ask, even if they do beat Germany.