France/Spain: What a Game!

I'm a big fan of the underdog. Hell, I couldn't survive as a Crew fan if I didn't have that hope leading me on all the time. And as France has won a World Cup in the past, I wanted to see Spain move past them, since they have never won the Cup and especially since they were playing such attractive soccer. I could rant all day about the negative soccer of teams like Italy, etc. but you really don't need to put up with that. If you pay attention to my blog enough, it'll come up again, I promise you.

So I sat at my desk yesterday here at work and watched the ESPN GameTracker for the match. And as the game went on, the announcer/writer who was updating us on the match kept talking about how patient the Spanish were being. And as the game went on more, I kept thinking "all this patience is great, but at some point you gotta lash out and go for the net, guys!"

When I got home and finally got to watch the match (though I knew the outcome), I had that thought reinforced. Spain led in possession for the entire overwhelmingly, but they seemed content to bat the ball around in back while looking for openings. If they had played a two-forward front instead of one, they might have had more success. But the French clogged up the middle and didn't allow the speed of Torres to be a factor. So that possession stat was very misleading. And their number one goal-scorer Raul decided not to show up for the game at all, which was disappointing because normally I love watching Raul play.

Their midfield was working hard, trying to get the ball through, and on occasion Barthez was forced to make great saves to keep things alive for the till-now struggling French. Xavi and Ramos were doing everything they could to spring Torres, and it just wasn't working well enough.

France, for their part, was playing a fast passing game, led by their general Zidane. This guy still looks great. Thierry Henry was having a devil of a time with the Spanish offside trap, but his struggles with it sort of tricked the Spanish into focusing on him, because their first two goals all came from the midfield speedsters Ribery and Vieira. And at the end, when Spain was finally forced to open it up to try to get the equalizer, that allowed Zidane to take advantage of their abandonment of the offside trap and score a beautiful goal of his own.

This was such a great game to watch, though... patient, fast, hard but clean... everything you could want in a World Cup match. After watching some of the hack-fests that have taken place so far, this was a real breath of fresh air. And, of course, it sets up a rematch of the 1998 final between France and Brazil.

So... Allez les Bleus!