Spain 2 – 0 England – What did we get out of it?

February 11th, 2009 | by: Rob | View Comments

So Spain beat England two-nil tonight, and I don’t really know how much we really learned. We were, certainly the second best team, promising opening 15 minutes aside. For most of the game though we didn’t look that threatning on goal, which probably shows that we still are a little way behind, probably the best team in the world.

Having said that, Spain didn’t play out of their skins either, Iniesta and Xavi passed the ball really well, Marcos Senna had a few ranged shots, and David Villa took his goal well, but they never looked like rolling England over.

Looking at the England side, Jagielka delt well with Torres, but his mistake led to Villa’s goal – an aimless careless pass to the midfield. Glen Johnson looked a little out of his depth at times. Beckham got Cap 108 a few nice crosses and a few good passes, including one that very nearly gave Carlton Cole a dream England debut.

I’m not entirely sure what Fabio Capello is going to take out of what was a largely uneventful game. The key difference between the sides seemed to be confidence. Spain looked like a side who new they were best in the world, and never really had to get out of playing second gear. England sometimes looked like they lost the confidence to really cut through the Spanish backline.

We started with two defensive minded midfielders, Carrick and Barry, which is sensible with the qaulity of the Spanish midfield, but we really did lack a Lampard or Gerrard in the first half, by the time Lampard came on at halfway, he could make little impact on the game.

Spain were also more notably technical than we are. They are a very technically gifted side, but they do lack width, and we failed to exploit that – Joe Cole, probably our most technically gifted footballer, was a big miss I feel. The Spanish passing did get quite sloppy at times, and Carrick in particular picked up alot of stray balls.

Also, we have to be thinking about starting afresh in goal. David James looked shakey, he dropped a clanger, and didn’t move for a couple of Senna’s ranged efforts. James has been having a good couple of years, but he does make stupid errors, and if we’re serious about 2010 (and tonight shows we still have some work to do) then we could do without them.

I also lost count of the times that we just played it back to the goalkeeper whenever we got under any pressure at all.

Overall, I think what we learned is not to get carried away. We do look better under Fabio than we did under McClaren, and we do have cause to feel good about England (look at our qualifying group), but we haven’t suddenly become World-beaters overnight. Spain are already there, all it took was a good run in a tournament and a bit of confidence. If Fabio can give us that, we’ll be well away.

If he could also see to finding us a David Villa, I wouldn’t complain.