Will Spain's fortunes in the World Cup be similar to Euro 2008 or the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup?

On Tuesday, the goalkeepers and defenders were discussed, and Wednesday, the midfielders were discussed.  With all of the creative talent in the midfield, that will bring the pressure on the forwards to convert the multitudes of chances that Xavi, Xabi Alonso, etc. will create for them.  Obviously, the two starting men up front would be David Villa and Fernando Torres, but Torres currently faces an uphill battle to be fit enough for their first World Cup game on June 16 against Switzerland because he is still recovering from knee surgery in April that cost him the rest of the Premier League season.

Thus, the reserve forwards will have a significant role to play, and while those two spots are not secure, Fernando Llorente of Athletic Bilbao has the third-choice forward in his hands.  Included in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup squad, he epitomizes the target-man center forward with his height and strength.  His technical skill should not be overlooked either, and with fourteen goals in La Liga and eight goals in the Europa League this season, only injury or a disastrous training camp will prevent him from making the squad.

Álvaro Negredo endured an inconsistent season with Sevilla, failing to impress enough to dislodge either Luís Fabiano or Frédéric Kanouté up front.  Because both could not continually stay fit, Manolo Jiménez and Antonio Álvarez gave Negredo numerous chances to prove himself.  His occasional run-ins with the Sevilla technical staff did nothing to paint himself in a more positive light, but when he played for the national team in his four appearances, he belonged.

His two goals against Bosnia and Herzegovina certainly showed his potential, but if Vicente del Bosque will finalize the last few spots based on current form, Negredo will have plenty of work to do in the last week of the La Liga season, the Copa del Rey final against Atlético Madrid, and the training camp to convince del Bosque that he deserves a seat on the plane to South Africa.

Dani Güiza has been the third forward since late 2007 for the Spanish national team, and his two goals in Euro 2008, including the match-winner against previous European champions Greece, showed that he could shine in the limelight of international football.  He made a newsworthy transfer in the summer of 2008 when he moved to Fenerbahçe for €17.4 million after winning the Pichichi with Mallorca in the previous season, and while he has had moderate success with the Istanbul club, he has not lived up to that transfer fee.

This season, he scored eleven goals in the Turkish Süper Lig but did not score in any of Fenerbahçe’s Europa League matches once they qualified for the group stage.  Llorente, Negredo, and Güiza are similar strikers in style, so Vicente del Bosque will have to decide among the proven international Güiza, the in-form Llorente, and the mercurial but talented Negredo.

That leaves the wild card in this discussion, Pedro Rodríguez.  A talented player from the La Masia youth academy of FC Barcelona, his original role on this year’s Barcelona squad was to be a backup to Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry, but as Henry slogged through a dip in form, Pedro unexpectedly rose in prominence, and he became the first player to score in six different competitions in one calendar.

Firmly entrenched in the three-pronged attack for Barcelona, he does not just score the meaningless goals when Barcelona is up two or three goals.  In the Champions League, Copa del Rey, and important La Liga matches, he scored numerous times that either tied the match, gave Barça the lead, or provided that two-goal cushion to ease the nerves.  Uncapped at the international level, that might be a knock to most players, but with his revelation of a season combined with a skill set that is completely different from the other strikers contending for the reserve forward spots, Pedro has a better than a fifty percent chance to join some of his Barcelona teammates in South Africa.

Whatever decisions Vicente del Bosque makes for his final 23-man squad, the wealth of talent from which he has an honor to choose is unparalleled in international football.  As detailed in Spanish national team history, they have always had supreme skill yet folded in the biggest moments.  With their Euro 2008 success, this team might have exorcised those demons, but now they are co-favorites with Brazil to win World Cup 2010, and anything less than a finals appearance will be a bitter disappointment.

Vicente del Bosque’s Provisional 30-Man Squad

Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas, Pepe Reina, Víctor Valdés, Diego López, and David de Gea

Defenders: Sergio Ramos, Álvaro Arbeloa, Raúl Albiol, Gerard Piqué, Carles Puyol, Carlos Marchena, Joan Capdevila, and César Azpilicueta

Midfielders: Xavi Hernández, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Juan Mata, David Silva, Marcos Senna, Santi Cazorla, Jesús Navas, Javi Martínez, and Cesc Fàbregas

Forwards: David Villa, Fernando Torres, Fernando Llorente, Pedro Rodríguez, Dani Güiza, Álvaro Negredo

La Romareda in the resplendent crepúsculo (twilight).

The January transfer window is made for the top teams to reinforce their squads for a title run.  As a whole, the window flew by with little fanfare.  Real Zaragoza was one of the few teams in Europe to make sweeping changes to their roster.  While their moves would hardly gather any front or back page headlines, the Zaragoza board realized that they needed to effect change in order to avoid relegation.

Even before January, they let go of manager Marcelino García Toral, the same man that guided the Aragonese club to promotion last season.  While the move was not popular with some of the players and the fans, the Zaragoza brass believed in the reserve team coach, José Aurelio Gay, to run the senior team for the rest of the season.

A capable midfielder for Espanyol and Real Zaragoza in the late 1980s through the 1990s, Gay’s subsequent managerial career garnered mediocre results with multiple teams in the lower divisions of Spain.  With his latest stop with the Real Zaragoza B team, he led the group of academy players to the top of Group XVII, the Aragon region of Spain, with a positive, attacking style that rarely occurs in the rough and tumble of the Tercera División, the fourth level in the Spanish football pyramid.

If Xavi Hernández complains of the man-marking and the lack of space he sometimes receives in La Liga and in the UEFA Champions League, he would dread playing in the Tercera División because a vast majority of the players at that level do not have the technical skill to compete for roster spots at the top level but have the heart and desire to chase the ball and commit fully to challenges.  Some of them are part-time players, and others are young cantera kids who are trying to impress their superiors, so a tireless work ethic is necessary to survive in this division.

A coaching change, however, appeared to be only window dressing as the poor results continued into January.  President Agapito Iglesias gave his consent to several signings as well as releasing a couple of their important players.  With the worst defense in La Liga, defenders were at the top of the list of improvements needed.  Jirí Jarošík, former CSKA Moskva and Chelsea defender, arrived on a free transfer, and they loaned veteran Italian defender Matteo Contini from Napoli until the end of the season, with an option to buy him outright.  They even brought former FC Barcelona and Villarreal defender Edmilson back from the dead.

Besides the holes in the back line, Zaragoza needed finishers.  Abel Aguilar was Los Blanquillos‘ top scorer with only four goals, so reinforcements in attack became important to keep up with the opposition if the defense could not hold.  Lazio loaned speedy winger Eliseu Pereira, who played with Málaga for two seasons, and Recreativo Huelva standout Adrián Colunga was loaned to Zaragoza.  These two pale in comparison to Zaragoza’s third forward signing, Chilean striker Humberto “Chupete” Suazo.  A prolific goal-scorer with Chilean club powerhouse Colo-Colo and 2009 Mexican Apertura champions Monterrey, Monterrey loaned him to Zaragoza until the end of the season, with Zaragoza having the option to make the loan permanent for €10 million.

The one significant player to leave Real Zaragoza in January was 36-year-old captain Roberto Ayala.  Signed by Zaragoza from Villarreal before Ayala had played a single match for Villarreal, the Argentinean defender’s career path slowly turned downward from that point forward.  While the former Valencia legend played admirably and adequately for the Aragonese club, the heights to which he played for Valencia and the Argentinean national team never materialized at Zaragoza.  Ayala and Zaragoza came to terms with the mutual termination of his contract, and he returned home to Argentina, where he currently plays for Racing Club de Avellaneda.

With all of these alterations within the team, they needed time to work out the chemistry among themselves.  Unfortunately, with only half of the season remaining and relegation a looming possibility, they needed to generate positive results quickly to avoid falling to the Segunda División for the second time in three seasons.

Although they lost 4-2 to Villarreal two weeks ago, they fought back from a 3-0 deficit to make the last ten minutes of the match nail biting.  Goals from Eliseu and Ángel Lafita made a stroll for Villarreal turn into a strenuous run.

Through seventy-six minutes at Tenerife last Sunday, Tenerife outclassed Zaragoza, but poor finishing yielded only one goal for Los Chicharreros.  In the span of six minutes, an unnecessary penalty conceded by Tenerife central defender Ezequiel Luna that was converted by Humberto Suazo, a beautifully lofted shot by Adrián Colunga over Tenerife goalkeeper Sergio Aragoneses, and an Ángel Lafita blast from over thirty yards that was the “Golazo de la Semana” led to José Aurelio Gay’s first win as manager of the senior team and Zaragoza’s first win away from La Romareda.

Returning from the warm temperatures of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands to the cold Cierza winds in Zaragoza, they hosted Sevilla FC on Sunday, who was fighting their way back into the Champions League spots with two straight wins in La Liga over Almería and Valencia and a midweek win in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semifinal over Getafe.  Ángel Lafita was suspended for this game due to an accumulation of five yellow cards, and Adrián Colunga filled in to pair with Chupete Suazo in attack.  Five of the January signings started in this match for Real Zaragoza, and the team performed as though they had been there since summer training.

Sevilla fielded a relatively weakened side, as manager Manolo Jiménez decided to rest the likes of Luís Fabiano, Renato, Jesús Navas, Didier Zokora, and Diego Perotti because they played midweek in the Copa del Rey semifinal and will likely play them in the second leg this Wednesday.

For the first half-hour, the teams were fairly even, as both teams had decent chances on goal but failed to capitalize on them.  Then from a corner kick in the 31st minute, Sevilla failed to clear the ball, and the ensuing scramble in the penalty box led to the ball popping out for Matteo Contini, who shot it across goal to the right far post, and passed Sevilla goalkeeper Andrés Palop for the opening score.

An egregious goalkeeping error by Juan Pablo Carrizo gave the Andalucians the equalizing goal less than three minutes after they fell behind.  From the left flank, Diego Capel floated a cross just beyond the right post.  Carrizo made the decision to venture off his line to punch the cross away.  He flailed and failed miserably to make contact with the ball, and Juan Cala’s header hit the crossbar.  Frédéric Kanouté slotted the rebound from five yards out, and Carrizo appealed and remonstrated to referee César Muñiz Fernández that he was obstructed.  Clearly, there was no foul, but Carrizo needed someone to blame for his mistake, and for his efforts, Muñiz Fernández rewarded him with a yellow card for dissent.

Equality would not last long, as Álvaro Negredo headed the ball into his own net from an Eliseu whipped cross in the 41st minute.  Zaragoza held a 2-1 lead into halftime, and they deserved the lead in spite of the go-ahead goal being an own goal.  The club from Aragon created more quality chances than Sevilla, and their commitment and spirit shone through the whole squad.  Even Chupete Suazo harried and hurried the Sevilla defenders and midfielders as they crossed the halfway line.  Suazo acknowledged that he has had attitude problems in the past, when he played for Universidad Católica in Chile and in Monterrey.  If José Aurelio Gay can get Suazo to work outside of his striker role, he must be doing something right.

Predictably, the second half transpired with Sevilla imposing their game onto Real Zaragoza, as Jiménez sent in Perotti, Renato, and Navas in to overturn the one goal deficit.  Sevilla could not break down the Zaragoza defense (who knew?), and frustrations became tangible when both Álvaro Negredo and Marius Stankevicius received straight red cards late in the match for vicious tackles on Matteo Contini and Ander Herrera respectively.  Sevilla never mounted a serious challenge to Carrizo in the second half, and Real Zaragoza elevated out of the relegation places with a 2-1 victory, two points clear of 18th place Real Valladolid.

Last season, Mallorca and Espanyol were in the last two places in the table at this point of the campaign.  Like phoenix, they rose from the dead and finished ninth and tenth respectively at the end of the year.  Real Zaragoza is a strong candidate to fulfill that role this season because of the renewed sense of hope instilled by José Aurelio Gay and brought by the new players that arrived in January.

The next five matches look promising for Real Zaragoza as they only face one opponent in the top half of La Liga, the ever-inconsistent Getafe.  If they are to remain in La Liga for next year, this stretch of matches is crucial for their survival.

Zaragoza President Agapito Iglesias wrote an open letter on the club’s website at the beginning of the New Year to apologize to the fans.  In part of his post, he said:

“The first thing I want to do, having taken on the role (of president) is ask sincere forgiveness for all our mistakes.  We have 23 league games left, a lot of months of football which we are facing with a slight disadvantage but in which everything is still possible.”

His vision and foresight are becoming to blend with reality, and with continued good play, they control their own destiny instead of relying on others to fail.

In terms of the football played on the pitch, the Sevilla – Real Madrid clash qualified as the best match of the young La Liga season.  Honorable mentions to Athletic Bilbao’s 3-2 victory over Villarreal CF in Round 3 and the pulsating 2-2 draw between Valencia and Atlético Madrid last Saturday night, but this fixture contained everything that a writer and a supporter wanted: back stories prior to the game, vigorous and attacking football, tensions boiling over the players at hand, and incredible stops by both goalkeepers.  All of these elements amalgamated into an ebullient effervescence of magical football.

The story that dominated this game prior to kick-off was the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo due to an ankle injury sustained in Real’s 3-0 victory over Olympique de Marseille in the Champions League on Wednesday.  In Real’s Round 2 match-up with Espanyol, Ronaldo started on the bench and only held a 0-1 lead at Estadi Cornellà-El Prat when he came into the game in the 66th minute and immediately changed the game.  Now that Madrid could not rely on Ronaldo versus a quality side like Sevilla, would Madrid respond positively to their first significant injury crisis of the season?

The first half hour of the match saw Sevilla control the tempo and possession, as they kept Real Madrid on their heels.  Real changed their system slightly with a 4-2-2-2 with Karim Benzema and Raúl up front with Guti and Kaká just behind and Xabi Alonso and Mahmadou Diarra protecting the defensive four, but this change did nothing to prevent Sevilla’s waves of attacks.  Man of the match Jesús Navas ran rampant down the right flank as Marcelo continually abandoned his defensive responsibilities at left back; even when Marcelo stayed disciplined, Navas went through and around him with relative ease.  One of Marcelo’s forays into the offensive third, however, did result in one of Madrid’s best scoring chances in the half when his shot from just outside the penalty box went a couple of feet wide of Andrés Palop’s near post.  The only negatives for Sevilla were that they did not capitalize on their numerous chances and Sébastien Squillaci had to be taken out of the game due to injury.  Fernando Navarro came in for Squillaci, reshaped the defense with Abdoulay Konko moving into the center of defense from right back, Adriano switched flanks and went to right back, and Navarro filled in at left back.

Sevilla broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute, when Jesús Navas headed home the opening goal.  The opportunity started with Diego Perotti cutting into the penalty area from the left flank.  Taking defenders with him, he flicked a back heel into open space down the left wing, where Fernando Navarro ran onto the pass and perfected a pinpoint cross to Navas in the box.  Not known for his heading ability, Navas would not win many standing aerial battles, but the teasing cross by Navarro gave Navas the ability to get a running start and beat a ball-watching Marcelo to give Sevilla the 1-0 lead.

The underlying tension and visible frustrations of Real Madrid came to a head in the 35th minute.  After a foul on Guti, Didier Zokora shouted some nasty words into Guti’s ear, presumably for Guti going down easily.  Guti retaliated by getting into Zokora’s face, and in response, Zokora put his hands onto Guti’s mouth and shoved him away.  Guti and Zokora nearly came to blows, while Diego Perotti involved himself in the mêlée by shoving Guti in the back to stand up for his teammate.  By this time, most of the players tried to sort out exactly what happened and kept each other from worsening the situation.  Zokora, Perotti, and Guti all got yellow cards, but symbolically, Sevilla showed they were not afraid of Real and further buoyed them to attack the Real goal.

Until the third minute of the second half, Sevilla continued to boss the game, but a Pepe equalizing header from a Guti free kick tied the score at 1-1.  In less than thirty seconds, Sevilla went from a potential 2-0 lead and certain victory to a 1-1 dogfight.  In the events immediately preceding the Pepe header, Álvaro Negredo showed his speed for a big man and ran down the right wing near the by-line.  He squared the cross across the six-yard box and Perotti had the simple finish, but somehow, Iker Casillas got across the goal line and stopped a certain goal at the far post.  Casillas was in position at the right goal post to stifle any attempt by Negredo to shoot at the near post, but when Negredo passed the ball across the six-yard box, there was a 99.9% chance that a goalkeeper could not recover and get to the other post in that short of a span.  Casillas got there and stunned Perotti, the team, and the fans; that is why Iker Casillas is in that 0.1% of goalkeepers.

That goal temporarily took the wind out of Sevilla’s sails, and Real Madrid began to take the game to Sevilla for the first time in the match.  Gonzalo Higuaín replaced an ineffective and virtually non-existent Karim Benzema in the 53rd minute and contributed almost immediately with some trenchant runs and a couple of shots at goal.  Sevilla halted the momentum train in the 66th minute when Renato scored to regain the lead at 2-1.  From a short corner, Adriano’s cross picked out an unmarked Renato who headed it towards the left far post for the goal; even the sublime Iker Casillas had no shot this time.

For the rest of the match, they went tit for tat, climaxing on the last movement of play in the fourth minute of stoppage time.  After Casillas saved another shot by Luís Fabiano, he quickly punted the ball, and the ball cushioned on the chest of Higuaín.  He settled it, made a mad dash toward goal, and laid the ball off for Kaká.  Kaká then gave Sergio Ramos a lovely through ball at the right side of the penalty area.  Ramos controlled the pass with one touch and then gave a last second, desperate lash at the ball, but it sailed wide of Palop’s near post.  End-to-end action from kick-off to the final whistle, literally.  A conclusion any less compelling would have taken away from a truly scintillating affair.

There are still thirty-two matches left in the season, and this result could have less importance by the end of the campaign, but that is for the future to tell.  Many will say that Cristiano Ronaldo could have legitimately made the difference in the result for Real Madrid.  That very well may be true, but placing that aside for a moment, for this night, in this context, the match of the season shook the players and the observers to their respective cores and witnessed gripping football at its very essence.

Sevilla’s 2-1 victory over Real Madrid on Sunday night signaled a change in many people’s minds about La Liga only being a two-horse race this season.  With Real Madrid and FC Barcelona maintaining 100% records through the first five rounds, this talk looked justified, but lurking behind with only one loss was Sevilla.  Disrespected would not be the appropriate description that defined Sevilla’s chances to claim the domestic title, but they were certainly overlooked.  Until they engineered a convincing victory over Barça or Real, they would continue to be the outsiders looking into the palace.  They are outsiders no more.

Photo courtesy of Metro Centric.

While the press and the media focus most of their ink and font on the newly built Real Madrid and the continued brilliance of FC Barcelona, Sevilla carries on with their consistent good form.  On the surface, there is nothing too sexy that immediately grabs headlines, but arguably, Luís Fabiano is currently playing as the best forward in the world since the continuation of World Cup Qualifying at the beginning of June.  He tallied four goals in four Eliminatorias Sudamericanas for the Seleção, including a brace in a historic road victory against Argentina, five goals in the Confederations Cup to earn that tournament’s Golden Shoe, and three goals in four matches in all competitions for Sevilla this season.

Sevilla also made some shrewd acquisitions in the summer transfer window to bolster the squad.  They brought back Lolo from his loan spell at Málaga and bought Didier Zokora from Tottenham Hotspur for €10 million to reinforce the central midfield, they got Espanyol academy graduate Sergio Sánchez for €3 million to augment the defense, and they acquired Álvaro Negredo from Real Madrid for €14 million to deepen the pool of strikers.  Probably the best move Sevilla made in the close season was not an acquisition but the ability to keep Luís Fabiano from suitors such as AC Milan.  Now they are two deep in every position on the pitch and can cope with the demands of three competitions without compromising their ability to feature quality squads in each competition.

An inauspicious start to the La Liga initially raised questions about the viability of Sevilla this season.  Even though Frédéric Kanouté earned a red card at the end of the first half against Valencia, Valencia outplayed Sevilla for the entire match, save for a few pockets of brilliance sprinkled in between, and lost their first game of the season at the Mestalla 0-2.  A defeat by the hands of Valencia was by no means shameful, but Sevilla wanted to build on their third place showing from last season with a defining opening win in the biggest game of Jornada 1.  Manolo Jiménez did not allow his players to sulk after the setback, and his Sevilla side defeated Real Zaragoza and Osasuna in La Liga in an easy fashion and turned away a disciplined Unirea Urziceni outfit 2-0 in the Champions League.

In sixth position at the start of Round 4, Sevilla faced a fourth placed Mallorca squad that gained seven points in their first three matches, including an unlikely 1-1 draw at El Madrigal against Villarreal in torrential rain and a 4-0 flogging against promoted Tenerife.  Sevilla engendered a feeling of vast superiority as they made Mallorca look ordinary and unworthy to hold such a high position in the La Liga table.  Sevilla combined their penchant for neat, passing football with a more direct approach to play Mallorca off the field in the first half.

The first goal came after seventeen minutes, when Julien Escudé flicked a header from a corner in the direction of Sébastien Squillaci, and Squillaci outleaped Mallorca midfielder Bruno China to the header and scored from five yards away.  The second Sevilla goal arrived in the 25th minute, and this time, they displayed the fluid football for which they have been known.  Jesús Navas initiated the move with a run down the right wing, where he passed the ball to Luís Fabiano.  Continuing the run, Navas slashed inside toward the penalty area where Fabiano produced a cutting ball to Navas inside the box.  Taking two defenders with him, he resumed his dash toward the end line and supplied a telling ball across the six-yard box and over Mallorca goalkeeper Dudu Aouate’s head.  Diego Perotti headed the cross into the back of the net from a yard out, but there was a good possibility that Navas’ cross would have gone in anyway.

Mallorca would eventually become more comfortable and create some opportunities, most of them in the last ten minutes of the first half.  Aritz Aduriz’s header forced a good save by Sevilla goalkeeper Andrés Palop in the 38th minute, Sevilla defenders blocked shots by Pierre Webó and Aduriz in the 44th minute, and Palop batted away Fernando Varela’s near-post strafer in the 45th minute.

The second half consisted of more Sevilla pressure from every part of the pitch, whether it was an inch-perfect diagonal ball from just inside their own half to the right edge of penalty area by Negredo, a lung-busting run by left back Adriano down the left wing that forced substitute goalkeeper Germán Lux out of his area, or a couple of headers inside the area from Squillaci that tested Lux.  Alhassane Keita, a 74th minute substitution for Webó, was the only Mallorca player that constructed some positive moves toward goal, including a one on one with Palop that eventually fell apart because Keita looked for contact inside the box by oncoming defender Escudé rather than focusing on the shot.

A 2-0 full-time score flattered Mallorca, but nevertheless, Sevilla continued their good run of form heading into a crucial three games, which include a trip to San Mamés to go against resurgent Athletic Bilbao, a journey to Ibrox Stadium to face a robust Rangers side, and a home fixture against high-flying Real Madrid.  In the Sevilla season preview, the question was asked if Sevilla could break the Barcelona – Real Madrid duopoly and finish in the top two.  Barring injury, Sevilla should definitively finish in a Champions League spot.  If they continue to keep the discipline and shape in the back four, maintain the defense that gave up the second fewest goals in La Liga, and create numerous goal-scoring opportunities that was lacking in the previous season, do not be surprised to witness a split between Barcelona and Real Madrid at the end of the campaign.