The Road to Glory for Spain
Hey folks,
Well i had promised that i would blog again before the World Cup would end, well that did not happen as i did not get the time to actually blog during that period 
There is a saying “Better Late than Never”, so i would like to share my thoughts on the world cup winning team Spain.
Well who would have thought Spain will win the World Cup after losing their first match to the gutsy Swiss, even though people were not happy with the defensive approach of Swiss. And there was a dubious record in the history books saying, ”No team in history has won the World Cup after losing the first match”. After this match the Spanish had their task cut out, win the remaining matches and advance to the next round. They did that by beating Honduras and Chile. There was one man who was taking them to victory and he was David Villa with some spectacular goals.
Then started the round of 16 against bitter rivals Portugal, who had amongst them Cristiano Ronaldo, but they denied him any opportunities and were patient in their build-ups and their patience paid off with Villa scoring the winning goal again. But i thought the match actually did not live up to the expectation of a classic match. By now England the team i was supporting were packing their bags to go back home. Now i was supporting Spain!!! Next up they had a relatively easy match up against Paraguay, this was again a low scoring affair with the score again ending up 1-0 to Spain, well but the match had its share of twists and turns with Paraguay getting a penalty and missing it and then Spain getting a penalty and they too missing it and finally Villa again to the rescue with the winning goal in the 83rd minute with a curling shot. It was a heart break for Paraguay and Oscar Cardozo who had earlier missed a penalty, had he scored things might have been different. So La Furia Roja had made it to the semis for the first time in all these years 
Now comes Paul the Psychic Octopus into picture at this World Cup cause he had been predicting the World Cup results with 100% precision. He predicts Spain to beat Germany, now the German fans want some Octopus soup for dinner But wait Germany had been bulldozing almost everybody who came their way with Argentina and England facing their wrath. Spain took Paul’s prediction as a motivation i guess, as they came off the blocks quicker than the Germans in the all important match and were attacking from the word go, with repeated attempts on the German goal, finally got a goal from an unlikely player in Carlos Puyol, the lanky defender from Barcelona. Now the fans in Germany were on the lookout for Paul while the England fans were dancing coz after all he was from England and earlier Paul had predicted Germany beating England, actually they did 4-1 !! .Well well Spain had advanced to the finals of the FIFA World cup 2010, their opponents where the Dutch who were no pushovers and had beaten the best like Brazil and Uruguay.
Now comes the big match for La Furia Roja, the defending European Champs who were tactically better compared to the Dutch and had more attacking players in Xavi and Iniesta, while the Dutch were depending on the duo of Sneijder and Robben to work their magic one last time. The match started in a very high tempo but those who saw the match will know that it was more a display of martial arts rather than football skills. Players were going down all over the pitch and English referee Howard Webb was flashing Yellow cards faster than a Bugatti Veyron The match was going still at 0-0 when Robben got a killer pass from Sneijder, he was one on one with Casillas but he hit it straight at Saint Iker, according to me the turning point of the match. At the other end too there were chances but no one was able to find the goal at the end of 90 minutes. Now came extra time, and the dirty tackles continued with more yellow cards coming from Webb. Then a key moment in the match when John Heitinga was booked a second time and got his marching orders from the referee, Spain had the upper hand now with a man’s advantage, they made full use of it and struck in the 116th minute with Iniesta slotting the ball past Stekelenburg after receiving a delightful pass from Cesc Fabregas. Then there was chaos with Dutch players surrounding the referee and protesting the goal thinking it was offside when it wasn’t. At last after 120 minutes the final whistle was heard and the Spanish players danced in joy with tears from both teams for different reasons.
And then FIFA President Sepp Blatter gave away the most coveted trophy in football to the Spanish Captain Iker Casillas and the world cup was coming to Spain soil for the first time!!
