[Mendieta]

Well the road to South Africa begins this Saturday with the first match against Bosnia. In the latest news, VDB has announced that he has some doubts about the starting 11, especially with Torres and Silva out of the picture for this match. He seems to be opting for more of winger formation with Capel and Cazorla playing on either flank. Villa to be the lone striker up front. Bojan also has been called up. Expect him to come on in the 2nd half if Villa does not produce goals. Also the big news is that Cesc and Xabi Alonso are left out of the starting 11. Probable line up is

---------------Casillas----------

--Ramos --Puyol ---Albiol---Capdevilla--

-----------------Senna---------------

--Cazorla -----Xavi---Iniesta----Capel---

-----------------Villa-------------------

 

[Mendieta]

Mabye I'm being too hard, but I wasn't that impressed with the game. This type of game reminded me way too much of the old Spain (pre-Euro) Very much the same style of passing the ball around way too much and not doing anything effective with it. Things seemed to improve slightly in the 2nd half the moment they started to speed it up at times. One thing I noticed which I don't like is the wasteful chances. In some cases I saw some players trying little back heals and fancy stuff like that instead of trying to take a nice hard shot in net. That's where I think Torres is missed so much. When he is there he adds some directness to the team that seemed to lack in the match. Anyhow, I'm happy with result, but not happy with the performance. We need to play more effective and stop clowning around so much with little back heals and crap like that. We can get burnt playing a team like Turkey or Belguim playing that style.