ROAD TO GERMANY: Part I
"Spain´s Quest for Redemption": First thoughts and roster analysis
Luis Aragonés announces Spanish 27-roster preselection for the World Cup (Mai 05, 2006)
So let´s see what we have:
Keepers: Casillas, Reina, Cañizares. Not bad, some quality here
Central Backs: Puyol, Pablo, Juanito, Marchena (likely and HOPEFULLY to be ruled out)
Right Backs: Sergio Ramos, Salgado and Javi Venta (odd man out)
Left Backs: Antonio López (soft), Del Horno (not commited to Spain if I may say so) and Capdevilla (likely to be ruled out, although I hope he gets the nod over Del Horno miracolously...). Definitely one of our weakest positions.
Central Midfield: Xabi Alonso, Cesc, Xavi, Iniesta (yep, there you go, just as stated in my April 27 column) Senna, Albelda, Baraja (hopefully to be ruled out)
Wing Players: Reyes, Joaquín, Luis García
Strikers: Torres, Villa, Morientes, Raúl
OK, it doesn´t look too promising, I know, I know but if the Greeks could win the Eurocup in 2004 with their crappy squad, anything is possible in this world, just ask Steve Nash (back to bck NBA MVP when people were questioning 2 sumers ago on whether it was a good idea to hand out a 60 million contract to an injury prone PG in his early 30s, but that´s another story...) and I´m not gonna quote Andy Dufresne this time...
Alright then, here are some key facts for our national team:
We might well have the worst scoring midfield of all 32 participants. None of our midfielders normally scores from the second line for their clubs, at least some of the guys know how to score through free kicks... But it gets worse: None of our left or right backs is a great finisher either (Pernía anyone?!?!), not to mention that our central backs hardly ever score from a corner or a free kick either. Reyes and Luis García have scoring ability from the wings unlike Joaquín and of our strikers, one of them is washed up (Raúl) and two are having their worst seasons in quite some time (Torres and Morientes, although I must admit that I´ve always faith in "El Moro"). That basically leaves us praying for Villa not to be running on fumes when World Cup time arrives but rather keeping up his league momentum... Oh well, there wasn´t much more to choose from except for maybe Tamudo, Arteta (not a scorer either), Navas (great talent from Seville but he´s aparently nuts, so... He starts feeling depressed during training camp cos he misses his girlfriend, so go figure...) and good old Salva. :-)
What we have is some good keepers and that´s fundamental in a World Cup, a defensive leader, Puyol, probably our most reliable player, and some good organizers. I´d start the following 11 on opening day:
Casillas; Salgado, Puyol, Juanito, López (yikes!!); Senna, Iniesta, Cesc; L. García, Villa and Morientes
Paying like a team and being solid defensively will be a key. If we figure out what 3 players work best together in the midfield we might have a real strength there. If then Reyes and Torres combine nicely on offense and focus on playing football, rather than the normal $hit they are up to, and Villa doesn´t loose his scoring touch, well there might be something to grab after all. But for me the key definitely are Cesc, he´s basically the only guy we have who can beat someone of the dribble and do something in our midfield and Iniesta who has just looked awesome as of lately, like a real pitch general!
Ok, that´s it for now. More to follow soon...
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