Teams: World Cup winners Spain & Sergio Batista’s Argentina
Result: a thrashing, though one Mr. Fabregas was heard to remark that it wasn’t quite as bad as the 4-1 scoreline suggests:
“We need to applaud them because they had four chances and scored four goals. It’s true that it wasn’t our best game, but neither was it a 4-1. We hit the post three times and had more chances. I think the result was too emphatic.”
Spain’s coach, Vicente del Bosque, started the game playing a number of “fringe” players, including Alvaro Arbeloa and Nacho Monreal in defence and Pepe Reina in goal. The previously quoted Fabregas got plenty of playing time too, something he wouldn’t normally see with the likes of the Barca midfield at Bosque’s disposal.
3 comments
Suman
September 10, 2010 at 12:23 AM
Some thoughts after watching the 5 goals (unfort that highlight clip, of course, doesn’t include anything but–such as all the Spanish woodwork Cesc was whining about):
Terrible defending on the 1st 2 goals. How does a Spanish defense allow Messi (on the 1st) and then Higuain to get run unmarked into the space behind them? I see Pique was in the back, but who else did the Spain start in defense?
3rd goal: bad luck, bad cleats, or bad pitch? This is the same Reina who flubbed it a few weeks ago for Liverpool? Yikes..nice month he’s had.
Spanish goal: nice buildup, nice finish by Llorente (who plays for Atletico Bilbao btw, and did in fact see action in South Africa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Llorente)
4th Arg goal: whatever
Suman
September 10, 2010 at 12:35 AM
btw check out Arg interim coach Sergio Batista’s photo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Batista
Looks like he and Maradona played together quite a bit for the nat’l side in the 2nd half of the ’80s; he has 39 caps, and was on the squad for the ’86 and ’90 WCs.
Suman
September 10, 2010 at 12:49 AM
Ok, one more link on this game. While searching for some commentary on this game, came across this fantastic blog; let’s go back to it in the future for all things Argentine:
http://hastaelgolsiempre.com/2010/09/09/thoughts-on-argentina-4-1-spain/
(motto: “More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at”)
Comments are closed.