Having lost their two opening encounters against Netherlands and Chile thereby crashing out of the ongoing tournament, the current World Champion however would not leave without a win as they defeat Australia 3-0 in the last match of their group
Goals by David Villa, Fernando Torres and Juan Mata gave Vicente del Bosque's men their only win of the tournament and secure them a third place finish in Group B.
Going into the day's match, the La Furia Roja knew they had to play for pride and Coach Vincente Del Bosque made seven changes to the his starting lineup against Australia, with David Villa and Santi Cazorla providing support to Fernando Torres upfront. Skipper, Iker Casilas was also left on the bench while Pepe Reina took his place.
After a slow opening exchanges, Australia showed more attacking vibrance, yet it was Spain who fashioned the first chance of note in the 20th minute.
Iniesta worked space on the right and showed great vision to pick out Villa at the back post, only for the forward to lash his volley wide.
Spain began to up the ante thereafter and Iniesta's clever backheel sent Jordi Alba free, but the full-back shot straight at Mat Ryan.
The lively Villa then showed neat trickery to bamboozle Mile Jedinak and fired a teasing cross along the six-yard box that neither Koke nor Torres could connect with.
Spain turned up the tempo and Villa broke the deadlock in the 36th minute.
Iniesta collected a pass in the midfield then send in a probing throughball to an overlaping run of Juanfran on the right byline for him (Juanfran) to sqaure into the box to Villa who then finished with an ingenious close-range flick from behind his standing leg.
Spain went further ahead deep into the second half with an impressive Andres Iniesta providing the assist with a defence-splitting pass that Torres collected on the left of the box before calmly slotting right-footed into the far corner.
Just when Australia think it couldn't get worse, Substitute Cesc Fabregas found Juan Mata (who also came in for David Villa) in the panalty area with a long pass which he with his right foot before slotting the ball inbetween goalkeeper, Ryan's leg to seal the win for the Champions.
0 comments:
Post a Comment