Spaniards' midfield mastery choked Germans DURBAN – Spain's football philosophy sounds simple – own the ball and you will own the game – but it takes incredible skill to execute it the way that has brought the Spaniards to their first World Cup final. No other team can match Spain's ability to maintain possession with precise, one-touch passes between constantly moving players. Against Germany, the system worked like clockwork, with Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Pedro Rodriquez dominating possession in the midfield. “As soon as we got the ball, we felt comfortable,” Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said. His German counterpart Joachim Loew noticed that, too. “They move the ball well and we couldn't play the way we like to play,” he said. “They had a certain dominance.” Spain has inherited its style of play from the country's successful club teams, especially Barcelona and Real Madrid. After winning the European Championship two years ago, Spain has now showed that its system holds up even at the highest level. It has only lost two of its last 54 matches, including a 1-0 defeat to Switzerland in its World Cup opener. Still, surprisingly few teams have emulated the Spanish model. “Not every nation can play this type of game,” said Oliver Bierhoff, Germany's assistant coach. “You have to have the players for that (system).” “Today you saw that Spain still has very excellent players who can keep the ball,” he said. “We had a lack of precision in passing. ... They were today the better team.” Obviously, moving the ball around doesn't do you any good if you don't score. But Spain is blessed with a deadly striker in David Villa, with five goals in the tournament, and another in Fernando Torres, though he hasn't found his form in South Africa. It also has one of the world's best goalkeepers in Iker Casillas, giving the outfield players the calm they need to patiently stick to their system, even when it doesn't yield immediate success. Spain's commitment to its style of play is unwavering. Switzerland beat the Spaniards with a solid defense and rapid counterattacks. But del Bosque's team refused to change its ideas of how football should be played, even when it struggled in the quarterfinals against another defensive opponent, Paraguay. “We live and die by those ideas,” Iniesta said. “We don't know any other way to play. So we'll try to do the same in the final and hopefully we'll have the luck to win it.” It had been billed as a shoot-out between two goal-thirsty gunslingers. Miroslav Klose, Germany's epitome of the clinical finisher, against Villa, the all-action star of Spain's campaign in whom Barcelona had just invested 40 million euros. As it turned out, the two men who had done so much to propel their sides into the last four were afforded few opportunities to influence the outcome of a cagey semi-final. Instead, it was a mighty leap and unstoppable header from Carles Puyol, Spain's warrior center-back, that settled a match whose pattern was dictated by Germany's decision to attempt to contain their opponents by defending deep and in numbers. Bossing the midfield with experienced, talented players was the decisive factor in Spain's win, underlined coach del Bosque. “It is always based on the quality of the people in the midfield. It is a good organized midfield and if you have order then you can really showcase individual talent,” Del Bosque told a news conference. “We have great players, excellent players, good substance and that makes everything easier,” he said. “I'm running a group of young men who are very experienced in the world of football.” Man of the Match Xavi was at the heart of Spain's best attacks, spraying the ball to the flanks and firing long penetrative, passes as German heads sagged. He also delivered the corner that Carles Puyol headed powerfully past Manuel Neuer to hand Spain their first World Cup final appearance in 13 campaigns. “We looked for the best way to play, take the ball, keep it, and to keep the ball during the entire match. Our players fulfilled this job in a magnificent way,” Del Bosque added. Xavi praised the performance of his teammates and said the players were comfortable throughout the match. “I'm very happy. I think it was deserved. The team did a great job. We dominated the match and the Spanish personality imposed itself,” he told a news conference.
