Crashed out of the UCL Semis, lost Puyol and Villa (in terms of importance, no.4 and no.3 resp.ly) but I imagine Spain can claim some moral victory basis Barca/RM being runaway best teams in Europe all season, and a 3-team Europa Semis showdown too.. speaking of moral victories, how about the race against time to secure one by getting the Spain Euro preview before FourFourTwo or Zonal Marking - although I suppose they can't really compete with our brand of hard hitting journalism. Not sure why they even try....chalkboards! like whatever that is so 20th century. Any hard core analysis needs to first be backed up with memes in the fast paced world of today, also the title of my latest book as one of the preeminent management gurus of our time.
Problem 1 : Position - Too few defenders. I'm not counting Raul Albiol who's been a joke ever since whoring himself out to Madrid from the Valencia team that made him what can be fairly painted as a younger faster last-year Pique. I shouldn't be counting Pique either on evidence of this season, but I will, and that gives us 1 CB and 4 Full backs in the squad. Ramos and Pique look to start in a no-brainer but really unbalanced back 2. Pique's spent much of the season playing with Mascherano and Busquets, both Midfielders so he'd be more comfortable with Javi Martinez who has, in a neat coincidence, spent the entire season at CB with Amorebieta the slightly more mobile Pique. Ideally - Javi, Pique at CB. Ramos and Alba at RB,LB. But assuming Ramos comes in at CB, definitely hoping Arbeloa doesn't play, I shudder to think about his fate with Silva/Mata ahead of him instead of Di Maria/Ozil. Juanfran's had a blinding season, but Arbeloa plays for the Real Madrid so I'm again going to head-shakingly assume he's in. Then again, a squad of 10 MF's tempts me to dream of maybe a 3-5-2 with Ramos-Javi-Pique behind Busquets-Alonso-Xavi-Alba-Cazorla playing into Silva-Iniesta. Notice how I've eliminated Chelsea f***s from the lineup - both of whom I assume will start, still workable with Iniesta back to MF and Silva with Torres. But bottom line extremely thin defence, I'm still finding a superlative for "astonishment" to describe the ludicrous picking of Albiol in the squad ahead of Victor Ruiz - with 2 more for CB depth available from a choice of Nacho, Navarro, Javi Lopez, Chico, Ballasteros, Amorebieta some of whom without exaggeration single-handedly dragged their sides through to results (think Kameni in Espanyol 4-5 years ago)
Problem 2 : Age - Everyone's older, Defenders are younger.... Although we needn't look too much into younger defense, that's majorly from the fact that Jordi Alba is 23 - and no real fear of inexperience there given the invaluable season he's had for Valencia.
Problem 3 : Location - So I'm a little biased by the fact that my football formative years were spent watching Spain teams built around Valencia and Italian teams built around Juventus and Roma, I don't insist on things remaining this way - Jordi Alba is on the team, and the only others from Valencia who were even close to being world class enough were Ruiz, ocean of tranquillity Albelda and possibly Soldado especially since Pablo H. hasn't played enough games. But, Euro 2008 had players from 11 different clubs (maximum from Valencia bythway...) - Euro 2012 has 12 players from 2 clubs (Barca 7, RM 5). I'd be ok with this if the argument was that the best players obviously play here. Albiol. Arbeloa. Fabregas.... Really? Best, really?.... Goddamn Albiol's started 8 games in all competitions!!!! I wasn't too kicked about the 4 players from EPL either, but then it was 5 last time so best not to complain too loudly - anyway Silva and Mata are hardly EPLic.
Problem 4 : Fatigue - Problem with 12 players from RM/Barca is they compete in at least 3 tournaments a year. Barca 5 this season. The starting XI this Euro will have played 7 and a half games more than the starting XI last time. Anyone who followed Bilbao's last 1.5 months of the season could counter rubbish the rubbishing claims of he-men like me about fatigue being in the mind - frankly I think these footballers are a bunch of pansies, just the other day I did like 5 push ups in the morning, went to office worked all day, jogged back home jumping over all car hurdles, played football with pre schoolers coked up on steroids, did a grueling Tai Chi cool down and then danced to my overplayed Britney Spears CD... without complaining about fatigue. Actually make that 2 push ups... sat all day... took an auto home (although it did jump over car hurdles in my defence)... watched pre schoolers play football (which is actually less disturbing than the original image...)...and did a grueling Thai Chips cool down. I'll leave the Britney dancing routine open to discussion in the suddenly rampantly overrun blog comments section. Headline being a lot more games played than when they won the Euro in 2008, just hoping this is only because there's more football these days in general - meaning all the teams are going to have a team coming off more games played in their respective leagues.
Can't see Spain games as any scenario but the Chelsea - Barca semi : waves after waves of Spanish attack smash... on opposing shields. Cazorla as a sub might be interesting, Torres regaining some Atletico-era form would be great, I'm really only watching them for Iniesta Alba link up. The fact that this is just a preview for next season is now pretty much without doubt, with Valencia not telling Barca "he isn't for sale" rather saying their offer is too low or in other words "suuuuure, he's only our best player after Banega... go ahead and take him!!!! but could you throw in a few cents so we can catch the evening bus to our ghetto". I imagine it's strange to suddenly downplay Spain's chances basis Puyol/Villa and general squad balance, when they still definitely have the most talented squad in the competition. But if this UCL and Europa season has taught us anything, talent is usually the problem. I don't suppose I'll win the race against time for the Italy preview before FourFourTwo or Zonal so if they make the connection between post Calciopoli WC success and the current fiasco in Italy... you heard it here first.
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