Spain line-up: Casillas (c), Pique, Puyol, Iniesta, Villa (Pedro, 88'), Xavi, Torres (Llorente, 58'), Capdevila, Alonso (Marchena, 93'), Ramos, Busquets
Portugal line-up: Eduardo, Alves, Carvalho, Ronaldo (c), Simao (Mendes, 72'), Pepe (Liedson, 72'), Meireles, Almeida (Danny, 58'), Tiago, Costa, Coentrao
Spain make a date with Paraguay in the quarter finals with a comfortable win against a lacklustre, uncreative Portugal. Eduardo was arguably the busiest keeper of the first half, and the whole match, with Torres showing a brief glimpse of his real self forcing a decent parry of Eduardo. In form David Villa also made Eduardo work with yet another parry to keep Spain level. Portugal looked to nicked the lead half-way through the first half when Tiago's long-range effort forced Casillas to punch but he looked rather shaky and the punch was upwards rather than outwards. This allowed the impressive Almeida to head over him before Casillas managed to recover in time to clear his lines. Ronaldo's only real showing in the game came from a far-out free-kick which again the uncertain Casillas had to parry, which fortunately ended up going to safety.
The second half saw Portugal start off quicker with Tiago narrowly missing after his shot was deflected off Carles Puyol. But that was soon to all change as Spain started to dictate possession and were trying to thread the ball through the Portuguese defence to find the breakthrough, Portugal on the other hand had lost all creativity and front man Ronaldo was looking his dejected self, not for the first time in this World Cup. Unimpressed by yet another below-par display from Torres, Vincente Del Bosque decided to sub him for Llorente just under the hour mark. Llorente supplied height to hold the ball up and looked more dangerous than Torres had done. Llorente could have scored just after entering the fray but his glancing header just went wide before Villa upped the ante by grazing Eduardo's post. The goal was coming and it arrived just after the hour mark with yet another beautiful passing display; Iniesta and Alonso were controlling the midfield and Iniesta found Xavi who was pulling the attacking strings. He played the ball through to Villa whose initial shot was blocked by Eduardo before rolling back into the path of Villa where he calmly looped the ball over the diving body of the keeper and into the net. Ramos thought he'd finished the game off before seeing his bottom corner-bound shot saved by he fingertips of the outstretched Eduardo. Villa was also looking to make the result certain but his fifth goal of the tournament eluded him in this match. Portugal's sorry attempt to get an equaliser declined even more when Costa saw red for what seemed at first an innocuous coming together with Capdevila, who definitely made sure Costa was punished as he rolled around on the floor in 'great pain'. However replays looked to show Costa use an elbow which may not have done as much damage as Capdevila made out but you definitely can't go around with flying elbows and therefore deserved to see red. This lead to Portugal's World Cup campaign end with a whimper and Spain will be favourites to overcome Paraguay in the quarter finals.
No comments:
Post a Comment