Germany Unable to Outplay Spain

Spain 1 – Germany 0
Match report

After a close match Spain secured their place in the World Cup final for the first time with a second half header from Carloes Yuyol. They won their fourth game in a row 1 – 0 and now face the Netherlands on Sunday in Soccer City.

Spain’s victory was certainly deserved after being the dominant team through most of the match; however, it was far from a smooth performance. Whilst they played better than against Paraguay the team was still having difficulties making clear openings.

Puyal headed home Xavi’s corner with only seventeen minutes remaining to make up for a terrible miss in the first half. Spain should have gone 2 – 0 in front after striking with a counter attack that was reminiscent of how Germany have played throughout this tournament, but Pedro failed to see an unmarked Fernando Torres..

Germany had been adopting an increasingly deep defence as the game went on and are now probably regretting not attacking more whilst the game was goalless. They had scored four goals in each of their previous games and had added real life to the tournament with their confident play. However, Spain did not give them many opportunities to strike on the counter attack so they have lost in the semi finals for the second World Cup in a row.

The Spanish coach Del Bodque dropped Torres yesterday and brought in Barcelona’s forward Pedro whilst using David Villa as a lone striker. Whilst the Spanish looked very comfortable as they passed the ball around midfield, the Germany side showed some excellent discipline and were rarely moved out of position.

On occasion Spain did manage to find holes in Germany’s defence structure, after Pedro came in for Villa it was only five minutes before the German keeper Manuel Neuer had to save a shot from him. Andres Iniesta crossed to Puyol but he headed it over the cross bar, soon after Xabi Alonso passed to Sergio Ramos who then kicked the ball wide.

Germany didn’t even have the chance to counter attack until 22 minutes into the game, however, it fell apart due to bad communication between Mesut Ozil and Lukas Podolski.

As the first half wore on the Spanish were looking stronger and stronger, during injury time it looked as though they were going to be awarded a penalty after a challenge from Ramos which brought Ozil down. Ozil was in a very dangerous position after collecting a pass from Miroslay Klose, it certainly looked as if he was fouled but replays showed that the initial contact was made outside the area.

The second half looked much the same as the first with Spain passing well and probing the German goal but this time they were getting much closer to scoring. Twice Alonso shot the ball wide from distance, Villa did the same with his attempt to curl across the goal and Pedro forced a good save from Neuer.

Germany would have fallen behind if it wasn’t for two near misses, Villa was inches away from sending home a Iniesta cross and Ramos was extremely close to converting an angles pass from Alonso.

Kroos later forced a save thanks to a deep cross from Podolski but soon afterwards Puyol scored and Spain were able to stop Germany from scoring to secure their place in the final.