Spain looking for Honduras win after Swiss shock
5:15 pm in Euro, World Cup by Ben
Switzerland’s 1-0 victory on Wednesday means the European champions cannot lose Monday’s Group H match at Ellis Park if they want to advance to the second round.
Xabi Alonso reiterated that Spain will stick to its possession-based game, but that coach Vicente del Bosque was considering making player changes.
“Nothing’s decided yet. Logically, the coach is analysing (the game),” Alonso said Friday from the team’s base in Potchefstroom. “It’s hard to evaluate, especially since the system worked well in the warm-up games coming in. The coach makes the decisions and whatever he decides, the players back him 100 per cent.” @Telegraph
The captain Patrice Evra admits it feels like France are a “small football nation – and it hurts” after they lurched towards the verge of early World Cup elimination with a 2-0 defeat to Mexico in Polokwane.
His suggestion that it was a shock, though, jarred. After all, theirs is no abrupt demise. The cockerel has barely crowed for a decade.
Slovenia were denied a place in the last 16 of the World Cup by a fine USA comeback. Having slumped to a 2-0 deficit at the interval, Bob Bradley’s men responded superbly after the break to earn a 2-2 draw.
France, the 1998 world champions and 2006 runners-up, were left with just a point from their first two Group A matches in South Africa and are three behind Uruguay and Mexico who meet next Tuesday.
Fabio Capello said last night that he has decided who his goalkeeper will be for tonight’s match with Algeria in the spectacular Green Point Stadium here and he has provided several hints that Robert Green will be retained for the job.
The day after Spain’s shock 1-0 defeat by Switzerland the Spanish press contained a mixture of gloom about the team’s performance and wounded resentment at the perceived failings of the referee, Howard Webb.