Spain or Germany – you decide

Germany have been something of a surprise package at the World Cup and I think even those in Germany may have thought their team was too inexperienced to expect much from. Who am I kidding? They always assume they’ll make the at least the semi-finals and in eleven of the last fifteen World Cups they have been right!

They faced what I hoped would be a tough test against England and quite simply out-classed them and blew them away. Then they faced what I thought would be a tough test against Argentina, but once again, they won the game at a stroll.

Toughest

This evening they face the toughest test as they take on pre-tournament and still favourites, Spain. Despite Spain not yet reaching the heights that they displayed at Euro 2008 and that we all know they can reach, they are still the team to beat and Germany manager Joachim Loew is under no illusions as to the challenge ahead for his young and exciting team.

After totally nullifying the threat of Lionel Messi at the weekend, Loew sees a much bigger threat coming from Spain.

“Spain remain the natural World Cup favourites. They not only have one Messi, but they have several Messis. They have a whole range of players that can win a game. They are a team that make very few mistakes, so we will have to be very watchful against them.”

Loew, however, knows that his team are capable of beating the Spanish. Whilst they lost to them in the 2008 European Championship final he believes his team now are better suited to the challenge posed by Spain.

“In 2008, there is no doubt that Spain were the best team at the tournament. They have shown great consistency and always played at the highest possible level. So they have been impressive. But now the situation is different. We too have a good team and we have every reason to believe that we can succeed. We’re playing in such a way that we could dominate anyone. We can dominate a match for 90 minutes, whether technically or physically.”

Loew believes that his team will need to subdue Xavi and Andres Iniesta in order for them to win the game.

“They’ve played together for a long time at Barcelona, that’s what makes the difference, But if we get on top of them and put them under pressure as we did with Messi, that will be the key to the match.”

Although Germany have probably been the tournament’s most impressive team, they are taking a Spain side who are full of confidence and contain brilliant individual players playing within a tried and trusted system that is compact and extremely dangerous on the break.

Firing

They have the tournament top scorer in David Villa, a player who will surely start firing on all cylinders soon in Fernando Torres, the best midfield players in the world, a solid back four and arguably the world’s best goalkeeper.

They are a team who have been together for a while and have known very little failure. From February 2007 to June 2009 Spain went a remarkable thirty-five games without losing. They won thirty-two of those games and drew the other three, one of which they won on penalties.

Record

In those games they scored seventy-three goals and conceded just eleven. The run came to an end when they were beaten by the USA at the Confederations Cup last Summer. Within the run was a fifteen game winning streak that is a world record.

It is worth a look at the team fielded by Spain in the first of those thirty-five games, a 1-0 friendly win over England in February 2007.

Together

The players used by Spain that night included Casillas, Ramos, Puyol, Capdevila, Xavi, Iniesta, Villa, Fabregas and Torres. That is nine of the current team who have played together throughout their remarkable run over the past three years.

Spain are a formidable team but Germany have been brilliant so far. In view of the fact that I have the worst prediction record in the world, I’m not even going to hazard a guess at the outcome of this one. I simply have no idea which team will be lining up against Holland next Sunday. I’m really looking forward to finding out.