Spain drew 1-1 with Serbia last night, putting their chances of playing in the next world cup in serious jeopardy. They have the best domestic league in the world, but when it comes to international games, they are rubbish.
I’ve even heard this blamed on the old inter-regional problems polemic – the Basques don’t like the Madrileños, who don’t like the Catalans etc., meaning that it is impossible for them to play well together – but that sounds a little far-fetched…
Pol
7 Oct 05 at 8:49 am
Do not believe the inter-regional problems are the reason of Spain’s traditional underachievement when it comes to international big games. Many legendary and many of the most remenbered spanish footballers to play for the national squad are either basque or catalan (i.e. Guardiola, Zubizarreta in the very recent past or Puyol, Xavi, Xabi Alonso today). I think it is very difficult to explain Spain’s missfortune, but to tell the truth, it’s been very strange that Spain hasn’t reached at least the semi-finals of the world cup in three ocasions in the last 20 years. (mexico86, when loosing in penalties in 1/4 finales to beligum, usa94 loosin to italy in the 1/4 finals in the last minute with referee controversy, and Korea/japan2002 loosing in 1/4 against Korea in penalty shoot-outs with great referee scandal).
I think the fast diagnostic for having such great players and such poor performance is : (*) Lack of great competitive skills when the situation gets tough (as in the manner the argentinians or the ex-yugoslavians have) (*) No more than average phisical condition (Spain relies only on technica skill) (*) Poor preparation of the events (as the result of the long and very strong domestic competition, that doesn’t allow any more space for preparing the national team) (*) Just plain and simple bad luck (this will have to change some day).
Anyway, this is being a good year for sports in Spain, with great achievements coming from other sports (Rafa Nadal : tennis, Fernando Alonso : Formula One). Maybe the football lads will soon start having funny ideas about winning someday too.
We’ll see this saturday, when Spains will play a decisive game in Belgium for the Germany2006 world cup qualifiers.
Good luck, lads!!!