Spain coach Del Bosque applauds new Germans

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque on Sunday saluted what he saw as a sea-change in Germany’s style of play ahead of the two countries’ World Cup semi-final on Wednesday.

Del Bosque said he did not believe the Germans would be treating the meeting in Durban as a revenge mission for their Euro 2008 final loss to the Spanish as his opponents had clearly moved on.

“I don’t think you can talk about revenge between two great teams. Both will be going all out to get to a World Cup final,” said Del Bosque.

“They recently set out to change a (style of) football which appeared to be worn out and tired. They have managed to refresh the team since the Euros and the proof of that is in their showings here.”

“They have got a great group together,” the former Real Madrid boss added.

Spain came to South Africa as the European side most favoured to distinguish itself after just one defeat in 48 matches.

They have generally recovered well from a shock opening group loss to Switzerland, despite finding goals hard to come by – with the notable exception of five-goal David Villa.

A young Germany side has in contrast hit four goals on three occasions while humiliating both England and Argentina.

Del Bosque says the Germans have no reason to hark back to their painful loss of two years ago in Vienna.

“I don’t believe anyone looks back to the past and a sportsman always looks forward,” he insisted.

He refused to be drawn on his tactics for stopping the German juggernaut.

“This it not the time to speak of the key to stopping Germany. I think we have to try to keep faithful to our style and maintain this competitive spirit which we have shown in this championship.”

Del Bosque added he believed that “we have done things really well to date” aside from the Swiss result – where the Spaniards in any case dominated the game.

“We started off with the Swiss loss which was very painful but since then we have posted four straight wins to reach the semi-finals,” said the coach.

“I don’t think this is the time to reflect but instead to keep on dreaming,” added Del Bosque, in the knowledge that Spain have never reached a World Cup final.