re: U20 World Cup Thread

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why the super hate for Iraq?

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some people haven´t been out of their small town, and have difficulty reddin´an´rittin´. Don´t sweat it, PT.

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Good for Spain and their recent success but believe it to be an anomaly. Choking is in their nature.

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cattus

Knowin history don't make you an idiot.
A country of talent that has always underachieved.

Love the 90's

But saying choking is in their nature does.

Especially considering they've basically dominated the last half decade at every level, instituted a tactical revolution, and changed the way people talk about possession based football. The fact they've kept up their success for this long is rather unprecedented, so obviously mouthbreathers will be the first to scream something moronic the first moment they falter.

Mouth breather? You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a historian that follows patterns. I have lived and like in Spain and defended them against the over reactionaries/haters after this last mickey mouse cup.

However, I believe that there is a good chance that after this "Golden Generation" is done..they could go back to their old ways and this generation will become gods like '66 is to England.

Can Spain Finally Lose the Underachiever Label in South Africa?

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Unfortunately, when it comes to Spain, despite their win in Euro 2008, until they take home a World Cup, they will be considered the biggest disappointment in the history of the World Cup.

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Damn, I thought France´s keeper was Uruguay´s keeper. I was like, WTF are they doing attacking (Uruguay).

They don´t match up well from a spectacle standpoint. Their tactics and style are too similar.

I'm well aware of Spain's national history in terms of underachieving at international competetions, but I'll state that the pattern from pre-2004 means little since the offside law changed in that year, giving technical sides like Spain an advantage over sides that were once based on physicality and workrate, like the German teams before the noughties. Obviously Spain saw the pattern, or more accurately Luis Aragones saw the pattern of the Spanish national team, a team which wasn't historically physical enough to take on the big nations of the world. The 2006 team was arguably more technical than the France team that beat them, although the axis of Zidane-Vieria-Makelele is as good a midfield trio as there ever was on the international stage. Aragones and the Spanish FA subsequently made the decision to emphasize the Spain's technical advantages in order to minimize their physical disadvantage. Thus you have tiki-taka, which developed concurrently with a revolution in the use of horizontal space at Barcelona. If Spain had continued to play in a way that left them exposed to more physical, disciplined teams, the pattern would have continued. But Aragones was intelligent enough to realize that Spain would never produce physical players consistently, thus the whole aim of the Spanish FA, from the youth teams to the senior teams, was to accentuate their technical advantage.

It's madness to assert that Spain will simply revert back to "choking" because that's in their "nature." A ridiculous argument. It appears that some teams have caught up to Spain in terms of using their athleticism to exploit the field horizontally as the Spanish do, but the Spanish technical advantage is great enough that this will only be tested once or twice a tournament, if at all. The Spanish youth set-up rivals the Germans and French for the most promising, and their success at the youth level in the past half decade reinforces that.

Paul Pogba wins the Golden Ball

Absolutely deserved

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Good for Spain and their recent success but believe it to be an anomaly

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My quote, FOB-I don't strictly adhere to anything, one has to see all the angles, Jack..it was simply an opinion

Brazil, Italy and Germany are proven winners..it is in there nature. Lived in and love Spain, hope they continue success.