Viva Chile!

The World Champions are out. After the trouncing they received from the Netherlands, the story was perhaps foretold. Chile played a great game, and all credit to this achievement. They have proven they are a world class team, something that anyone having watched their development over the last four years should have seen.

Apparently the Spanish do not watch football.

No matter the degree to which the Spanish underestimated Chile, their degree of commitment to a match that was so crucial was appalling. The Spaniards had no pace, marked poorly and scandalously missed their few chances to score. Diego Costa was so useless that the Brazilians must be delighted to see that he did not join their side. The central defense looked a bit better without Pique, but still lack quality. Casillas had another bad day. However, he remains the best in the world, and the degree of criticism he seems to be getting in Spain is simply too much. 

The one that should be blamed is Vicente del Bosque. Not to know a thing about your opponents is bad enough, but to choose your players seemingly at random is poor to say the least. Against Chile he decided to play with no midfield; leaving Xavi and Fabregas out was to take away the needed offensive creativity, and only rely on the brusqueness of Busquets and Javi Martinez. Besides this poor lineup, his lack of choosing any of the many young and upcoming Spanish stars in the squad (perhaps except Koke), was without vision of the future.

Names do not win matches. Mr. Del Bosque forgot that.

Australia and Spain are the two first teams to be eliminated from the World Cup. They will now face one another in the last match. Australia proved to be no pushover, but I do not think that the Spaniards have taken note of this. With zero points and a score of 1-7 against Australia's 3-6, Spain needs to win the final match if they are not to suffer ultimate humiliation and end last in the group.

In the meantime, Chile are looking with optimism at their next match. Excellent fans and good players have justified that they now have great expectations. If anything: VIva Chile!!!!