Spain Bounces Back and Dispels Doubts

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/sports/soccer/28iht-soccer28.html

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LONDON — There is life in the old Spanish dog yet.

Having slipped a couple of points behind France over the weekend, Spain recalled its midfield generals, Xavi and Xabi, and wrung out a 1-0 victory over the French in Paris on Tuesday.

It was by no means easy, but it was the 50th World Cup qualification match in a row in which an opponent has been unable to beat the Spaniards — a streak that goes back to March 1993.

“Everyone has doubts at times,” Vicente del Bosque, the Spanish coach, observed. “The team played like men tonight.”

Even the lugubrious del Bosque, a winner of 57 of his 70 matches in charge of La Roja, was minded to say: “This helps to support the conviction we have in our ideas.”

In effect, the trainer was telling the critics to mind their own business and manage their own doubts about the Spanish will and ability to bounce back. By dominating almost 75 percent of the match in the French national stadium and by probing patiently until Pedro scored the only goal of the night, Spain reminded us that possession is nine-tenths of the law on the soccer field.

Pedro, the boy from Tenerife who made good at Barcelona, used his considerable pace and his timing to get behind the French rearguard. With almost an hour played, he scored from a low cross by Nacho Monreal.

Pedro has been doing this for some time now. The stolen strike Tuesday was the 10th time he has scored in his last six full games for Spain. He is a more consistent finisher at the moment than David Villa — and much more than the lapsed, almost-forgotten Fernando Torres.

And while Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta — rightly heroes in Spain — squandered chances through hasty shooting Tuesday, Pedro didn’t miss when his chance came. France, of course, railed and tried to rally. Its new midfield player, Paul Pogba, showed his wild side when he gave the referee no choice but to send him off for two unacceptable fouls within a minute.

The first, a stomp on Xavi’s ankle, might itself have been a red card offense. The second, his foot raised head high to the opponent, definitely was.

In those moments, long after Spain’s goal, the difference between the sides was made plain. France is rebuilding under Didier Deschamps. He wants the team to be aggressive, to fight for everything as he did as a World Cup winner in 1998; but in trusting Pogba, a raw player who turned 20 this month, he went for a youth who does not yet know how to deal with such worldly and such possessive players as the Spanish have in abundance.

So at Stade de France, pretty much as at the Euro 2012, Spain demonstrated that it is for others, not its team, to try something different. There is a factor that is often overlooked when the doubters say that Spain does not score enough goals for all the control it has on the field: Its defense has conceded just two goals in five World Cup qualifiers in this campaign.

The French enigma Karim Benzema is not the first to be taken off the grass early to a chorus of whistles and boos. He’s not in the best form, but it was Victor Valdés, Sergio Ramos and Gerard Piqué he was up against Tuesday.

Scoring is no easy thing at this level. Sure, the Germans and the Dutch do seem to roll over whoever stands in their way in qualifiers — and the Dortmund trio Marco Reus, Mario Götze and Ilkay Gundogan had Kazakhstan on toast long before the eventual 4-1 score was posted in Nuremberg.

Easy is sometimes what Robin van Persie makes scoring appear to be. With a looping header and then a penalty kick, van Persie took his career total to 34 goals for the Netherlands during its 4-0 romp against Romania in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

Those goals take van Persie ahead of the great Johan Cruyff’s 33 goals for the Oranje — the difference being that van Persie has played 74 games, compared with Cruyff’s 48.

But the assumption that the world is made up of certain teams that are cannon fodder to the big guns does not always hold. Argentina knew it would be tough against Bolivia at high altitude in La Paz, and gratefully came after a 1-1 draw still the comfortable leader in South America’s qualifying process.

England achieved the same result — but with much less certainty — against Montenegro in Podgorica on Tuesday, the second time in 17 months that England has been greeted as grandees of the sport there. Montenegro, after all, has not quite seven years of independence, compared with England’s 150 years as the founder of organized soccer.

When Wayne Rooney was given the freedom of the Montenegrin goalmouth to head in a goal after just six minutes, by which time he had already hit a post, the presumption of English superiority grew large.

But at halftime, the home side changed tactics. The home crowd, 12,000 strong but sometimes sounding like the entire 632,000 population of Montenegro, roared.

Dejan Damjanovic, a substitute who earns his living in Seoul, came on to add height and devilment to the attack. And when he preyed on rank confusion in England’s defense to equalize, it was as if there were no difference at all between the English household names and the Montenegrins.

The final score, 1-1, leaves Montenegro still top of the qualifying group, but with tough away games to come. What gives the dream a chance of reality is that, like so many players of that region, Montenegrins can look so composed and so comfortable on the ball.

The skills are there — if only the organization and belief can overcome the age of historical planning of their opponents.