The Hindu : Sport : Smooth sailing for the Spanish Armada

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Friday, Jun 20, 2008
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Smooth sailing for the Spanish Armada

Daniel Taylor

SALZBURG: For Greece, a third successive defeat to seal their ignominious defence of the trophy. For Spain, Euro 2008 now gets serious and they can turn their thoughts to the quarterfinals.

Italy will guarantee much stronger opponents than this limited, malfunctioning Greece side but Spain surely deserve to be recognised as the more likely winners considering the way they have stylishly bulldozed through Group D.

Already assured of their place in the last eight, this was effectively Spain’s reserves in action yet it was difficult at times to know the difference, with Xabi Alonso particularly impressive on an evening when second-half goals from Rubén de la Red and Daniel Güiza turned the game in their favour at the Stadion Salzburg Wals-Siezenheim.

It was no less than they deserved after Greece had opened the scoring against the run of play, via Angelos Charisteas, shortly before half-time.

Many chances

Güiza’s winner did not arrive until two minutes from the end but, in the preceding half-hour, Spain had created at least half a dozen chances to score and, on the evidence of what we have seen so far, the other teams left in this competition could be forgiven for looking at this exuberant, penetrative side with a degree of trepidation.

It speaks volumes, for example, that Alonso, even in this brilliant form, has almost no chance of making it into the team against Italy.

Greece, it has to be said, will not be badly missed. Their smash-and-grab tactics could be described as dreary, to say the least. Had Aragonés chosen a full-strength side this would probably have been an even more chastening experience for the outgoing champions.

Even so, it was a considerable surprise when Greece scored their first goal of the tournament, even if the source was hugely predictable: a free-kick into the penalty area, a firm and precise header from Charisteas, and here was the exact formula that had won them the tournament four years ago.

At that stage, Spain’s supporting cast did not look like they were treating the match with utter seriousness, the one exception being Alonso, captaining the side and displaying the passing range and perceptive qualities that demonstrate why Juventus are willing to pay £15m for him.

The Liverpool midfielder also came close to scoring the goal of the tournament from inside his own half of the pitch. He missed by only a couple of feet and the Greek goalkeeper, Antonis Nikopolidis, was so disorientated that he ended up running into the post and winding himself.

Alonso sent another two long-range efforts narrowly wide in the first half and, nine minutes after the break, hit the post from 30 yards, but it was his passing that stood out as exceptional.

After 61 minutes Güiza headed a long ball into the path of De la Red and the Real Madrid midfielder, back at the Bernabéu after an impressive season on loan at Getafe, lashed a right-foot shot past Nikopolidis from just inside the penalty area.

The remainder of the game — refereed impeccably by England’s Howard Webb — was virtually encamped at that end of the pitch and Güiza, who scored 27 times for Mallorca in the Spanish league last season, sealed Greece’s misery when he headed in Sergio García’s deep cross.

The result: Spain 2 (Rubén de la Red 61, Daniel Güiza 88) bt Greece 1 (Angelos Charisteas 42). — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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