Spain vs Switzerland – World Cup 2010 

This Wednesday the last group begins its action. Spain, Switzerland, Chile and Honduras are the national teams of the group and for me Spain will advance from the group as first without many troubles, with Switzerland and Chile trying to get second place, while Honduras can’t be more ambitious than to score a goal in the event.

In this match we have Spain that will start as the current European winner, and as such has much dignity to defend in the event, for what it expects that it will be very strong since the first whistle of the referee. For me, they have the best midfield of all the national teams with Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas, despite Iniesta still remaining a doubt to start, which opens a place for Xabi Alonso in the defensive midfield of the team. In the wings, they will have David Silva and Pedro to try to feed David Villa, which promises to score many goals in this first phase. Fernando Torres won’t play on this match, so Villa can start to consolidate his place as the principal forward of the team in this match. The preparation of Spain was the continuation of the wisdom brought to the team by Del Bosque, that counts already on 19 straight games without losing.

Switzerland is a national team very competent defensively, that wishes to do the same like four years ago, which is to advance from the phase group of this World Cup, if possible without conceed goals. The defense is without any doubt the strongest point of the team, with Senderos leading a strong high line of defense. Of the remaining, they have a fragile midfield, two good wingers, Lichsteiner and Ziegler and the attack doens’t have the power of fire to shake the spanish defense. And much less after the news about two of the influential players as absence for the game against Spain, the center-midfielder, and for me the most influential player of this team, Behrami, and the experienced forward Alexander Frei who were sacrified from the first match due to injuries, which shows very about the attitude of the coach, that prefers to have all the team at 100% for the matches that they can really win, against Chile and Honduras. I had the chance to see the last two preliminary matches of this Swiss team that, as always, showed competence in defence but without major weapons in attack, but still, with all their big stars, tied to 1 goal against a “second team” of Italy national team, but without Behrami they earned a surprisingly defeat against Costa Rica by 1-0.

For this match I believe Ottmar Hitzfeld will try to avoid to the maximum Spain’s first goal, playing in an ultra-defensive form, since he knows he won’t have many chances of winning the match without the two most influential players of the team.

With Spain playing in a phenomenal form, I’m waiting that they will start attacking since the beginning, knowing already what they must do to win this match in a relaxing way against a Swiss team that will be thinking already on the other teams of this group. A point to Switzerland in this match would be almost the gold that would give them the qualification.