It was another 1-0 in World Cup 2010. However, it was such a scintillating and a thrilling match. No, not because I am a Swiss, but because I have to admit that I am some sort of an underdog guy. Spain was totally the overwhelming in this competition such that 19 out of 20 people I asked said that they support Spain and the other one supports Brazil. Congratulations to Switzerland for their first ever win against Spain, and to do it in the World Cup finals game, and not in a meaningless friendly, certainly a great achievement and satisfaction to everyone associated with Switzerland. The Spanish team was actually such a great and extraordinary team on paper. I realized this upon glancing at their squad list prior to kick-off. Picture this, a coalition team of players (although only the Spanish players but yeah) from Real Madrid, Barcelona, and bits and pieces here and there from Valencia, Liverpool and a few other clubs. A totally world beating team on paper. The supposedly red hot Spanish knives were looking forward to slice through and totally melt the Swiss chocolate on display. However, little did they know that the Swiss chocolate in front of them is one which is frozen solid and a frozen chocolate not only difficult to be bitten and eaten, but also can be used as a weapon to throw at someone or beat them up using the chocolate (Don't try these at home, just trying to illustrate the Swiss team for tonight using a chocolate analogy).
The 1-0 scoreline again might baffle anyone who did not watch the match. Spain utterly and totally dominated the match and the Swiss team all the way from the first whistle to the final whistle. Their possession at one time amounted to a whopping 77%, surely one of the highest ever in a World Cup or any competitive match ever. However, biting into a frozen solid chocolate is not an easy task. Blame the Jabulani Ball, blame the altitude, blame the heroic Diego Benaglio, the Swiss keeper, blame anything. But Switzerland amazingly held on to the Spanish onslaught. Switzerland scored the winning goal at the 51st minute through Gelson Fernandes capitalizing from a heap of Spanish bodies of Iker Casillas, Puyol, and Pique strewn all over the penalty area. Just like most of the other matches on this World Cup, one goal is all it takes to win a match and this match turned out to be no exception. Spain then made two attacking substitutions by introducing Fernando Torres and Jesus Navas. The former to add some attacking dimension and also some height in the Spanish attakc and squad in general, while Navas was introduced to reinvent the Spanish midfield as the man he replaced, David Silva seemed to have run out of ideas to break the frozen solid and resolute Swiss chocolate. Nobody would have thought of this as somewhere in the first half when Philipe Senderos had to be substituted as he suffered an injury, he walked off so slowly but to be fair to him he was dejected, but nevertheless, it seemed to be a signal from the Swiss that they were more than happy to hold Spain to a goalless draw. If Switzerland had faced Honduras perhaps, Senderos would have walked off at least a bit faster than that.
As time passed, Spain grew ever more frustrated and at the last 5 minutes of the game, they were so dominating and so frustrated and so overwhelmed with sense of urgency by then that every single Spanish player except for Puyol (which he was about to join the attack soon) and goalkeeper Casillas. Still, the frozen Swiss chocolate won't crack. The 5 minutes of injury time was a bit controversial and when it was announced my mind flew back all the way to when Manchester City was defeated by Manchester United back in the Fall in 2009 due to a crazily lengthy of injury time at Old Trafford as well as the FIFA Seeding system for the World Cup play-off in which there was a conspiracy theory brewing about how FIFA is desperate to see the best teams win and be featured in the World Cup all the way to the latter stages. But, Switzerland held firmly despite the fact that during the 5 minutes, every single player barring Casillas was in the Swiss half of the pitch. It was amazing how the Swiss held on mainly thanks to Diego Benaglio's heroic, in which I am a fan of this player since 2009 and I believe he is the man of the match for this one. Congratulations Switzerland for the major upset in this World Cup. To be fair to Spain, this is just the first match, and they should be able to overcome Honduras and Chile to go through to the last 16. Also, history suggests that teams that start slow in the World Cup tend to do well in the competition. Thus, for all Spain's fans including the aforementioned glory hunters, there's still hope for Spain!
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