The Confederations Cup: Spain 0-2 USA
Yes, yes, yes. Spain had an off night. It has been a long season and their players may have been tired. And so on. Let’s drop the excuses, here. Spain, the European champions and, if you read the print media in much of Europe, already the World Cup winners a year before the tournament, were beaten by a better team on this extraordinary evening in Bloemfontein. This evening, the USA were better organised, more committed and took their chances when they were presented to them. The question now is whether they can translate a result like this into something more concrete. It’s the biggest surprise in the latter stages of an international competition since Croatia dumped Germany so royally out of the 1998 World Cup. The USA team’s next job is to work towards this sort of a result not being a surprise any more. For the first couple of minutes Spain swarmed forward, but the pace of the game was soon being dictated by the Americans. They had wondered aloud what may happen if Spain didn’t properly turn up for this match, and the game plan was clear. Run, chase, tackle. Don’t give them time or space to stop and think. It was as much as they could do, but it was enough. This wasn’t the blanket defence of the minnow playing the major nation, it was deep...
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