Sensible Spain prepare for the worst
by Graham Hunter from Neustift
Perhaps it is because Spain have not won a senior tournament for more than four decades that they have already started practising penalties. No detail is to be spared here under the watchful eye of Luis Aragonés. England did not qualify and therefore UEFA EURO 2008? will need a team of unlucky losers who depart after a penalty shoot out - Spain do not want to be that side.
'Tiny details'
On arriving in Austria it was their midweek goalscorer, Xavi Hernández, who set the tone with his clarion call. "In a tournament it is always the tiny details which determine whether you win or lose - the error, the ball that hits the post instead of going in and so on." Thus, a large part of a brisk Saturday training session was dedicated to two different scoring arts - the volley or header from a right-wing cross, and the dreaded task of finding the net from the spot.
Alonso stunner
By the end of the morning, two players had distinguished themselves. Xabi Alonso may have been a discreet performer during the final two warm-up matches, but the Liverpool FC midfielder has been in outrageously good form over the last 48 hours. Everything he touched turned to gold in Friday's workouts, but the 26-year-old Basque surpassed that benchmark on Saturday. Running on to a Sergio Ramos cross from the right, Alonso was at an angle reminiscent of that from which Marco van Basten scored his famous goal for the Netherlands in the 1988 UEFA European Championship final as he crashed the ball back across Pepe Reina and into the top corner. The involuntary 'Ooooh!' which his effort drew from the watching fans and journalists told its own story.
Cheeky penalty
It was also patently clear that Rubén de la Red takes an extremely confident penalty. His shoot-out competition with Alonso and Ramos and Marcos Senna ended as a tie after four efforts each, but the Getafe CF midfielder twice managed to finesse Andrés Palop with the impudent lofted chip which Antonín Panenka patented in the 1976 European Championship final. De La Red is not expected to start in La Furia Roja's opening Group D match with Russia on Tuesday, but he also was not expected to reach the Copa del Rey final with Michael Laudrup's team this season, or to drive his club side to a thrilling 4-4 away goals defeat to FC Bayern München in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals.
Creative position
"I genuinely think that all the midfielders are starting from an equal base and I think that I handled the two friendly matches pretty well," he argued. "The position I play in is particularly important to Spain because we are an attacking, creative team and I'm here to produce whatever is asked of me." De La Red was, of course, sent off in that dramatic second leg against Bayern and acknowledged he now pays more attention to the discipline side of his game. "We've had a briefing on the refereeing and the emphasis is on respect but, of course, we know that a bad tackle can bring a straight red and you need to show restraint."
