Spain Who?!

Today at the World Cup has seen the second round of matches in Group B. Containing both the finalists from the 2010 competition this was meant to be the easiest to predict group with both Spain and the Netherlands expected to go through to the last 16. That is not what happened.

The day began with the match between Australia who statistically the worst team in the tournament and the Netherlands who thrashed reigning champions Spain 5-1 in their opening match. As such even the Australian fans expected to be slaughtered. They were in for a pleasant surprise though with the Australian team coming out to play some amazing football. Far from being intimidated they pressed the Dutch constantly pretty much preventing them from putting together a meaningful attack and even managing to create some chances of their own.

It looked like their early pluck would count for nothing when Robben put the Dutch 1-0 up after 20 minutes. With the Dutch having a long history of never losing a game in which Robben has scored this looked the start of an Australian massacre. However the Australians were having none of it and within all of 72 seconds Cahill had levelled the score with an amazing volley from a long cross field ball that is an early contender for goal of the tournament. With the deficit quickly overturned Australia continued pressing the Dutch every step of the way.

This perseverance paid off in the 52nd minute when the Dutch defender Janmaat conceded a penalty. This was seen as slightly controversial because although he handled the ball in the area Janmaat didn't seem to do so intentionally. However his arm was stretched out quite a way from his body and did stop the ball going through to an Australian player for a possible goal scoring opportunity. As such is was a fair penalty and one that Jedinak converted to put Australia 2-1 up.

However demonstrating what an absolutely end to end game this was Van Persie then got on the end of a through ball to smash into the net for a Dutch equaliser. There are some though that say Van Persie shouldn't have even been on the pitch at this point because moments before he'd made a crunching foul which hit Jedinak right in the knee. Although Jedinak was uninjured in the slow motion replay you could see his knee bend in the opposite direction as Van Persie made contact. As such this was exactly the sort of dangerous challenge that people are trying to get banned from the game and should have earned Van Persie a yellow card which would have been his second of the game meaning that he was sent off.

A very clear example of why this type of challenge is considered so dangerous came in the other match in the group when Chile's Aránguiz appeared to damage his medial ligament and had to be stretchered off and substituted. That type of injury can take anywhere between 10 days and six weeks to heal. If the injury is severe enough it can permanently impair the movement of the knee joint enough to end a football players career. Fortunately Aránguiz appears to have only sustained a minor injury meaning that he's only likely to miss the next game.

Australia still weren't going to be intimidated though and not only did they soak up the Dutch pressure they managed to put together a potentially match winning chance when in the 57th minute Oar found himself one on one with the Dutch keeper with Leckie in support. Unfortunately rather then taking the shot himself Oar decided to cross to Leckie who clearly wasn't expecting it. So much so that he seemed unable to decide between volleying it or heading it and ended up doing a bit of both with the ball sort of bouncing off his chest.

All of 40 seconds later it was the Dutch who were on the attack with Depay blasting the ball goal-wards from 50 -60 yards out. Initially Ryan the Australian 'keeper looked like he had it covered but as the ball skimmed the ground it swerved slightly taking it just beyond Ryan's reach and into the back of the net putting the Netherlands 3-2 up. Despite continuing to press and press throughout the remaining 20 minutes the Australians couldn't find a way through and 3-2 to the Netherlands was how it ended.

The other game between Spain and Chile couldn't have been more different. Despite needing a point to stay in the competition Spain lacked drive, control, speed and initiative. With their almost suicidal commitment to fast, attacking football Chile were causing them problems from the start. Vargas put them ahead after 19 minutes and Aránguiz put them 2-0 up after 43 minutes. This meant all they had to do was sit back and absorb Spain's pressure in order to protect their lead. As it turns out there wasn't much pressure for them to absorb and they went on creating chances and could have won 4-0.

In the end it finished 2-0 though meaning that although they both have a final group game to play - against each other - both Spain and Australia are now out of the competition and based on today's performances I can see the reigning champions leave the competition without any points and only scoring a single goal.

Apart from Spain's performance tonight's game was marred by the behaviour of some 300 ticket-less Chilean fans who broke into the stadium through a security fence, smashed their way through a glass door and tore down a temporary wall inside the stadium in order get into the game. Some 30 of them have already been arrested and I can see FIFA imposing a harsh penalty on the Chilean FA over the incident because post-Hillsborough ticket-less fans forcing their way into a stadium is simply not acceptable. 

21:45 on 18/6/14 (UK date).