Saturday, March 26, 2011

Euro qualifiers

I am delighted to say that I have found a nice bar to watch football and drink beer in Caracas, with a great atmosphere, down-to-earth friendly crowd, and most important, beer. It was there I watched Spain's qualifier against the Czech Republic. After many years of success, the Czech have become a quite ordinary team, and Spain's world champions dominated completely. Still, in spite of the fact that David Villa with 2 goals became the most scoring player in the history of Spanish national teams, Spain seems to have an attacking problem! With a possession of 80% and numerable passes, it is surprising that the team does not kick on target more often, and their 2-1 victory seems way too small, also considering that the Czech's were ahead at halftime, after only shooting on target once!
The world champions play well, but one must also consider that they were the team in the history of World Cups that won with scoring the least goals! They are not defensive in the traditional sense of the word, but their defensiveness lies in their extraordinary amount of possession.
There is no doubt Spain will qualify from their easy group, but it will be interesting to watch them against some of the stronger opponents!

Denmark and Norway were playing in Oslo in their qualifying group in a clash of teams that is always bound to bring forth Scandinavian rivalry. I watched the match on Arab TV on my computer, and was happy to see a Danish side that played intelligently and held possession against a Norwegian team that as always, plays some of the most primitive and boring football in the world (if Norway had been the birthplace of football, it would never have become a world sport, but would rather be as popular as cross-country skiing), but are always dangerous. Denmark went ahead, and seemed in control, but in the end the match ended 1-1, a fine result for Denmark, although from watching the match, the Danes should have decided the match. Christian Eriksen, the young talented Danish playmaker is still too young, over-eager, and not cool enough when it counts.
Norway is leading the group with Portugal in second spot, but I do not believe they will hold on to that place. In the end, the battle for second spot after Portugal will take place in Copenhagen between these same Scandinavian rivals.

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