Spain has been the best National Team of the World by a fair margin since 2008 and at their best, they are nearly unbeaten like Barcelona has been in the last years because they play in a similar style and obviously have some common players. The potential problem for this team is the (lack of) desire and motivation to win after being successful lately. This is the usual problem that the Champions have and Spain is no different. Fatigue can be a problem as well because I seriously doubt that any player of any other team has played more games than Xavi, Iniesta, Piquet or Casillas in the last two seasons.
The “Pep Guardiola Barcelona system” has been well assimilated by National Team Head Coach Vicente Del Bosque and Spain, like Barcelona, will absolutely crush every opponent in the ball possession battle. In certain periods of time they lack some objective on their game and some experts even call them “boring”, but when they have the ball they surely assured that they won’t suffer any goal. Note that in the UEFA World Cup 2010, Spain in the knock out stages didn’t allow a single goal in 4 games!
Strenght(s):
- Depth and quality on the midfield: I may be overreacting a bit, but Spain has in my opinion the two best midfield units in this tournament! To think that Xabi Alonso, Juan Mata and David Silva might be on the bench at the same time just to back up Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta says it all about the quality and depth of Spain in this area of the field. Del Bosque has been using 4 or even 5 midfielders at the same time, so Spain has the ability to just shut down the opponent by simply retain the ball possession.
Weakness(es):
- Like Barcelona, Spain sometimes have problems to score just because they pass the ball too much and they don’t take many risks. However Barcelona has Lionel Messi while Spain likely will have Fernando Torres, enough said… In their last friendly match against China, Spain needed 84 minutes to score one goal after attempting more than 20 shots and ended the game with 15 corners, 8 shots on target and 24 shots wide! Del Bosque will use only one striker in Torres or Negredo and both players aren’t world class players unless Torres suddenly regains his old form. The absence of David Villa is a huge blow for them because he was their best forward during the golden age of the Spanish soccer.
- I have also some doubts of their defense as well: Puyol will miss the competition and Spain lacks some leadership in their defense. Pique didn’t have a good season, Ramos is too unstable and their defensive wings aren’t top class players when compared to the midfield unit, so Spain can have some defensive problems in this tournament however the opponent must have the ball which will be a tall order.
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