Spain versus Netherlands preview

Hola,

The final of the last cup is being repeated in the first game of Group B. This game can go both ways. Either it will be a boring strategy game with not much happening the full 90 minutes and an uneventful draw, or it will be a gigantic game with a lot of goals. In my opinion, the former is much more likely. Both teams are virtually guaranteed the qualification for the knock out phase and will be out to save their energy for a later stage of the tournament.

The only incentive to actually try to win could be to win the group and avoid facing Brazil in the round of the last 16. Although after last night's game, the only fear factor Brazil seems to provide is the Referee :D.

Spain

The dominating team of the last 6 years. Their last elimination at an international tourney was at the hand of the legendary Zinedine Zidane in the year 2006 at the World Cup in germany. Their era of dominance has gone long enough and a decline is to be expected. Many of the players have had a very bad season with lackluster performances. Xavi is simply too old and his starting in the formation is incomprehensible to me. Pique has had his worst year at Barcelona and is a shadow of his former self. Ramos and Juanfran had a fantastic year. Alba's season was full of injuries and he is far from a world class left back. This defensive line seems way too fragile and is spains weakest since many years.  It remains to be seen how Iniesta will be able to perform. His season was also very unimpressive. Costa had a fantastic season. But his injuries in the last few weeks also add a question mark to his form. Is he even at a 100% ?

Spain is in many ways a big question mark. Will they be able to surprise us all again and win the world cup? The names are all fantastic, but the players are either old or out of form. we shall see...

Netherlands 

Van gaal is the coach. This makes Netherlands extremely unpredictable. He was nto able to coach his national team suring his first engagement before the 2002 world cup. In fact they did not even qualify under his regime. the 3-4-1-2 formation also seems very odd. The defensive line is also not really full of star players. On the other hand, they were very impressive during the qualifying. 

This team will be very interesting to watch.

Prediction: Very hard to predict this game. I think a draw is likely. But let us see what will happen. I certainly hope that Van Gaal has managed to put up a real good squad and that the Netherlands will win.