La Roja

So he's already ditched that weird 4-4-2, with no right-sided midfielder?

Kas you play for Gefate

Iniesta for carzola and thats spains best midfield.

---------iker

--Ramos---Pique--Albiol--Capdevilla


---Xavi---Senna--Alonso--Carzola

-----------Torres--Villa

for spain

Spain lack creativity without silva and INIESTA

Halftime spain aren't opening in up turkey's defense and turkey are creating a bit of danger on the counter.

DB needs to bring on Silva for alonso,because Xavi is the only one creating out there and they are dropping on him as soon as he gets the ball.

it ends 1-0 for spain pique with the goal

Messiah wrote:---------iker

--Ramos---Pique--Albiol--Capdevilla


---Xavi---Senna--Alonso--Carzola

-----------Torres--Villa

for spain

I was a bit surprised by that lineup...he ignored the chance for a symmetric midfield and went again with 3 central players and one wide player...I didn't watch the game, but was Cazorla floating around in a free role, or did he stick to one flank?

Interesting CB pairing too, Marchena finally gets dropped. So they go from a very old pair of Marchena-Puyol to the one of the future: Pique-Albiol. How did they perform?

only saw the 1st half, but pique and albiol applied them self well, spain has the CB position softed for years to come if these two get better with age.

Carzola mainly played on the right in the 1st half with xavi floating around trying to create.

The midfield didn't work well and bar xavi and a good pass from senna they didnt create much in they 1st half.

Torres was he usually shit self without space to run into, and the turkish midfield and defense didnt allow any of that, villa was poor as well.

The second half wasn't that better though. Only when Turkey had to go for the game did we have any success.

Generally, Turkey were sharper than us and at times were keeping the ball from us. Mehmet Aurelio and Tuncay played particularly well.

I only seen the 2nd half, but Spain looked a bit brighter with introduction of Mata + Silva. Thought Cazorla looked decent too. Not sure playing 3 CM's is neccessary though, particularly at home - unless maybe you play with a traditional no.10 behind the two strikers. Though I've still not really seen a reason to continue with the two man strike force.

Agree on Spain's defence. Makes me laugh, as it often get's critcised but they've kept a fair few clean sheets. In their last 11 games they've conceded two goals. (The record may even extend beyond that, but Wiki only keeps a record of recent friendlies) Believe Spain also beat France 1-0 in recent times too.

Alexis is another that could become a very good CB.

Spain were playing a 4-4-2 (diamond) formation with Xavi as the no. 10, Cazorla on the left and Senna on the right - Ramos was given the whole right wing.

Xavi was given free reign to float about, but he wasn't man-marked out of the game as I thought the Turks would do.

@ Calidad
I should hope they have a good defence playing with two DMs.

Olé wrote:Spain were playing a 4-4-2 (diamond) formation with Xavi as the no. 10, Cazorla on the left and Senna on the right - Ramos was given the whole right wing.

Xavi was given free reign to float about, but he wasn't man-marked out of the game as I thought the Turks would do.

@ Calidad
I should hope they have a good defence playing with two DMs.

Same at Real, poor kid is going to get burned out very quickly.

Spain beat Azerbaijan 6-0 (in Azerbaijan) in their a friendly warmup before the Confederations cup. Villa got a first half hattrick, and Riera, Guiza and Torres had the other 3. Cesc got a blow to the head but it wasn't serious.

Starting lineup was a 4-4-2:
Casillas, Arbeloa, Marchena, Albiol, Capdevila, Cazorla, Xabi Alonso, Cesc, Riera, Villa, Torres

Reina, Sergio Ramos, Busquets, Xavi all got a half each, while Puyol and Guiza came on for about 20 mins.


Goals...check out Villa's 2nd and the assist from Xavi for Torres' goal