One of the first rules of any tournament is not to get too excited too early about Spain, and Luis Aragones’ much fancied side appeared to be reverting to type until Villa scored the winner, writes Paul Wilson.
David Villa’s fourth goal of the tournament gave Spain victory and, thanks to events elsewhere, a place in the quarterfinals, although by the second minute of stoppage time one felt quite sorry for Sweden, who for the preceding 91 minutes had managed to put all the early euphoria surrounding their opponents into perspective.
One of the first rules of any tournament is not to get too excited too early about Spain, and Luis Aragones’ much fancied side appeared to be reverting to type until Villa latched on to a 70-yard defensive hoof from Joan Capdevila to skip past a tired Petter Hansson and slot the ball home. Two wins out of two cannot quite conceal the fact that Aragones does not yet appear to have settled on his best midfield. He left Cesc Fabregas on the bench for most of the game despite a glaring lack of communication between strikers and support players, then brought him on and found he couldn’t make much difference.
The early signs were ominous for Sweden. Twice in the first 10 minutes Fernando Torres drifted out to the right and whistled past Mikael Nilsson as if the defender wasn’t there. Nothing came of either move, although Sweden knew they had to watch for Spanish pace and movement not just through the middle but all across the pitch. All the same it was a set piece that resulted in Spain’s opening goal. From a short corner David Silva sent in a cross-cum-shot from the angle of the area, and Torres reacted sharply to poke it past Andreas Isaksson with outstretched boot when the goalkeeper might have been expecting a header.
The biggest threat to Spain’s composure came midway through the first half when Carles Puyol suffered a thigh strain and had to be replaced by Raul Albiol. It was perhaps not entirely coincidental that Sweden equalised shortly afterwards, with the sort of goal that Puyol’s organising presence in central defence might have prevented.
First Fredrik Stoor’s ball from the right wing crossed the penalty area and reached Ibrahimovic at the far post, then when the Inter striker’s slightly inelegant first touch took the ball away from goal Sergio Ramos was stuck on the ground and no one else reacted. Hardly needing to be asked twice, Ibrahimovic recovered himself and scored his second goal of the tournament with a low drive .
Sweden had worked hard to blunt Spain’s edge and deserved to be back in the game, yet could have gone behind again on the stroke of the interval when they were lucky not to concede a penalty. Pieter Vink took a lenient view of Elmander flattening Silva near the penalty spot, although he might have had one or two reservations when he saw the replays. Spain’s disappointment at losing Puyol was matched by Sweden’s when their goalscorer failed to return for the second half, Rosenberg coming on when Ibrahimovic reported pain from an old knee problem during the interval.
Without Ibrahimovic the game was becoming a hanging-on exercise for Sweden, but what was more conspicuous was Spain’s inability, even with Fabregas on the pitch, to break down or break through Sweden’s lines of defence. That remained the case until the 92nd minute, when Sweden did not have the legs to keep pace with Villa.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
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