Re: Mex vs Cam, Spn vs Dutch, Chile vs Aus-predictions
Really? Noone was expecting Spain to win as being the number 1 favs. All the big media outlets and pundits who have seen Spain play thought Brazil and Argentina were favs, then followed by Germany and Spain. The first three due to their potential. Spain, not because of their players but due to the fact they have won Euros, WC and Euros again on the trot.
Xavi, Alonso are past it. Ramos is hit and miss at defence, always has been while Pique is known to be calamitous. Casillas hasn’t played properly for Madrid for the last 2 years and Spain changed their system entirely due to Costa. Barcelona play exactly like Spain, both of them the proponents of tiki taka fooball. To play this you have to have players who are superb stamina wise and can run around and keep the ball for 90 minutes. Spain had a younger Xavi and a younger Alonso in the past which helped Iniesta and others play so good that they did not even need a striker. Now the former two cannot run around for 90 minutes and Iniesta isn’t known for carrying teams on his own. As a result Barcelona have been thrashed numerous times last two seasons heavily so its no surprise to see the same happen to Spain.
The manager is afraid to drop Xavi and Alonso just like Pakistan or India would never drop Wasim or Tendulkar. Drop them and play Cesc (who was superb last WC) and Mata or Koke. And they may play better. The manager was criticised last time as they won without playing a proper striker so he has gone on and played one but its clearly not worked. I am a bit of a football fanatic (as you can tell 
) and I have seen all these players a lot the last couple of years. Barcelona collapsed for the same reason as Spain when they lost to Munich 2 years back. Spain play the exact same way with the same players so the process will repeat. That Barcelona manager now has Bayern Munich play the same way as Barcelona did and what do you know, this season Bayern were thrashed too. The system is very hard to pull off and this is not the same Spain of the last 3 tournaments.