Ok, maybe more 'burnt out';even the few Spaniards I know reckon this and the advancing years thing are an issue.
And another year/long club season for many of their top players won't help?
Is there a team anywhere that isn't ageing?
I think they're simply knackered to be honest. They've been flogged to within an inch of their lives over 4 years or more of advanced stages of CL, long league season and post-season tournaments.
I think the team could probably use with some new personnel just to shake things up, and would be improved by an aggressive CB. I preferred Senna of 2008 to Busquets and think a change in that position might benefit them.
The strange thing was Italy (against Uruguay) didn't look anything like as spent as the Spanish despite playing with less rest time, in a hotter city (Salvador) and during a hotter time of day (daytime not night).
I think age, possibly together with the climate, will be a factor next year. At the World Cup Xavi will be 34, Iniesta will be 30. Upfront Villa will be 32, Torres 30, both Llorrente and Soldado 29 - it's likely all 4 will have moved clubs (possibly all will have moved leagues too) so they could be struggling for form. The current keepers will be over 30 (Cassillias will be 33, Valdez 32 and Reina 31) maybe De Gea can come in, but it's not a given he will be able to slot into the team that easily since he's hardly played with the rest of the Spanish defence. Carlos Poyol will be 36 and in all likely hood wont be at the World Cup, but this leaves them a little suspect at the back. While both Pique and Ramos are good at brining the ball forward and driving out of defence, neither of them are great at basic defending - they dont have the positional sense nor are they great in the air, compared to say Thiago Silva or Puyol. Full back could be a problem too, since Arbeola will be 31.
It could be a case of the youth team sucessfully stepping up and plugging some of those holes, but from what I've seen the most gifted youth team players for them are diminutive attacking midfielders or wingers. Thiago Alcantera, Koke, Muniain, Isco, Canales, Tello, Oilver Torres - all great or potentially great players, but they are all of very similar ilk, well under 6ft and all tiki-taka short passing midfielders or wingers, it's nice to have options like that but when you already have players like Mata, Cazorla, Navas, Silva it's overloading in certain positions. Where are the next generation of defenders or strikers? Under 21/20 players in those positions dont seem to be of the same quality.
Alvaro Dominguez had a reasonable season at Leverkusen, but he's 24 and the fact Atletico let him go last summer suggests he maybe isnt a world beater. Bartra has looked pretty poor as a defender at Barca, maybe one of the very young players like Derik Osede or Israel Puerto will become a great defending center back, but unless something dramatic happens in the next year, WC2014 is likely to be too early for them. It's the same with strikers, perhaps Alvaro Morata or Alavaro Vazquez could become good strikers but there are a load of factors such as game time or being pushed out to different positions, which suggest this wont happen that soon.
Spain will still be a strong team, but the idea that this Spanish team would be invincible and march on to lift the World Cup in Rio next year without any trouble (plugged by the BBC and a fair amout of Telegraph and Guardian journos) was always fanciful.
Obviously time moves at the same rate for any given player... but I think the point he was trying to make is that perhaps the Spanish team is a bit stale in terms of there are maybe quite a few positions for them where the players have been the same for 4-5 years and now a few of those players are on the downward curve of their career...Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
It's interesting to look at the possible strongest line ups for other big teams and you can see maybe these teams are a little younger than the Spanish:
Germany (age at next World Cup) - all have played at a Euro or WC except Kruse
Neuer (28)
Lahm (30)
Hummels (25)
Badstuber (25)
J. Boateng (25) / Schmelzer (26)
Kehdira (27)
Ozil (25)
Schweinsteiger (29) / Muller (24)
Reus (25)
Goetze (22)
Gomez (28) / Kruse (26)
France
Lloris (27)
Clichy (28)
Koscielny (28) / Varane (21)
Rami (28) / Sakho (24)
Debuchy (28)
Pogba (21) / Diarra (29)
Payet (27)
Nasri (27) / Thauvin (21)
Gourcouff (27)
Benzema (26)
Giroud (27) / Remy (27)
Argentina
Romero (27)
Ansaldi (27)
Garay (27)
Federico Fernandez (25) / Colocini (32)
Zabaleta (29)
Banega (25)
Gaitan (26) / Lamela (22)
Lavezzi (29) / Di Maria (26)
Messi (26)
Aguero (26)
Higuain (26)
I would say it's the same for Colombia and possibly the Belgians. Italy are traditionally thought of as an aging team, but if you look at the probable starting 11, they have two massive age spikes around Pirlo and Buffon (with a real decision to make on the latter), but also have a lot of young players who you would say are probable first team players (Balotelli, El Shawharay, De Sciglio, Astori, Marchisio and Candreva could be the spine of a young team). At the moment I would say that De Rossi probably isnt a starter for Italy for next year unless his club form has a massive turnaround. And the bench could be very young with the likes of Ogbonna, Veratti and Lorenzo Insigne.
Bartra looked good for Spain in the Euro u21's. He was only used by Barca because of centre half shortages.Difficult to tell if he will make the grade for the seniors but hardly likely in time for the WC next year.
Meanwhile Spain are cleaning up every underage tournament.
The WC u20's are into the knockout stage, Spain v Mexico on tuesday is one of the standout ties and the winners of that meet Nigeria or Uruguay in the qf's
No, that's the point I was trying to make
I think even the best teams need an injection of new blood (no pun intended in context of Spanish doping controversies). Wasn't there talk of Xavi having to be talked out of leaving the Spanish camp early in this tournament?
Well, exactly. Edmundo makes the point in much more detail but the word 'aging' implies a need for fresh blood...
Let's be honest, we go on about this almost as much for some team in green that we know!
Barta was used and didn't look great at all against CL opposition, to the point where Barca seemed to prefer Adriano (usually a full back or midfielder) in the center instead of him. I wouldn't put too much creedence in Euro u21 competitions, some teams don't send the best U21 players, Spain edged out Germany 1-0 but no Dortmund or Bayern players were involved due to the CL (except Can at Bayern but he'd played less than 300 mins for Bayern all season). That's Contento, Kroos, Muller, Goetze, Gundogan and Leitner - all but the latter would have walked into the starting eleven of the U21 squad. As well as that Low pulled rank and insisted that some U21 players joined the full squad for Germany's US tour, ter Stegen, Schurrle and Draxler all would have made the squad and would have been near enough the first team. Italy also took some U21 players to the Confed Cup, Italy took players like De Sciglio, Balotelli and Saharawhi to the confederations cup, all of them could have been at the Euro 21 cup. Whereas Spain didn't take any U21 players to the confederations cup (I think Azpulicueta was about 4 months too old to play in the U21s this summer).
Some teams just dont take the underage tournaments that seriously, there isnt too much prestiege in underage tournaments and some federations tend to bump up younger players to the full squad. I'm not sure you can infer too much from winning the regional underage tournaments, Spain have won two Euro U21s in a row, Holland did the same in the mid-late 2000s, nobody talked of a dynasty then.
I'm not sure they quite "clean up every underage cup", they look reasonable in this years U20 World Cup but its still early days - in any case they didnt even make the semis in the previous 3 editions (which were won by Brazil, Ghana and Argentina). Remind me how they did at last summer's global underage tournament, Morocco Honduras and Japan wasnt it?
The point is Spain can send a squad to win the euro u21, at the same time send a senior squad to Brazil and send a squad to the WC u20's.
'Clean up' refers to recent run of Euro championship victories at u19 and u21 level.
These competitions are no walk in the park, never mind win it in the manner Spain do. Germany found this out, with their golden generation available and playing, failed to even qualify for the u21 2011 euro finals.
The evidence suggests that there is serious and successful effort being given to the development of underage talent in Spain.
The Netherlands are another country who take this underage competition stuff serious and 'pound for pound' (along with Portugal), have impressive returns compared to larger populated countries with big money leagues. So yes, one can dismiss the successful efforts to develop underage talent in the way Spain do, as having doubtful future effect on the senior stage, but I'm not one of them.
"Spain edged out Germany 1-0"
One could interpret a 1-0 stat as the losing team being edged out, indicating a close encounter, a slight edge.
If you watched the game you might well have written that Spain were thoroughly deserving winners, Germany were outplayed and fortunate to keep the score down with a resolute rearguard action (with a few forays).
If you did watch the game and still stick with "Spain edged out Germany" then there's nothing more that can be said in conversation.
Last edited by geysir; 01/07/2013 at 8:51 PM.
I wouldn't dismiss Spain's underage achievements, but the real battle is learning how to integrate these players in the senior set-up if they are even up for it. Germany have very successfully integrated their golden generation but perhaps that was out of desperation. The situation isn't half as desperate for Spain - in fact it's the opposite - and it's the brilliance of their current squad that will impede their ability to bring through the next generation. The question mark is over whether the Spanish FA is willing to allow the next generation to come through as it will mean compromising the cash cow that is their overseas friendlies.
Which happens with all great sports teams. Besides the cyclical nature of many, in terms of having access to such talent, human nature is to persist with those who're successful without integrating new players when signs of weakness occur, eg. losing 0-3 to a hitherto unimpressive Brazil team.
Spain don't need to throw out the baby, but do need to look at finding a replacement for Puyol and a decent young goalscorer, as stated up thread, for instance.
The Euro U21s is a reasonable tournament, but the U19s is a bit flakey. You say the competitions are not "a walk in the park", but it's worth noting that, for U19s in the last decade you have seen teams like Greece (twice: last year and 07), England (twice: 09 and 05), Scotland (06), Turkey (04) and Ukraine (winners in 09) get to the final. With respect to all of those teams none of them are powerhouses of national team football (well perhaps there is a debate over England). The whole qualification process for the U19 tournament is stilted, instead of the normal 6-team-group home and away games spread out over 1-2 years (which is what happens for all senior tournaments, and the Euro U21s) you have a series of mini tournaments each taking place over 5 days.
For example the Irish U19s played a 3 game tournament (over 5 days) in Luxembourg with matches against Germany, Luxembourg and Macedonia. Then six months later another 3 game tournament (again 5 days) this time in Serbia, with matches against Slovakia, the Swiss and the Serbs. The top 3 seeds (this year Serbia, Spain and Turkey) skip the first tournament. Top put it in simple terms, to qualify for this years U19 tournament Spain only had to play three matches (W 1-0 Poland, W 2-0 Greece, D 1-1 Croatia) in five days - I think Serbia got through with 1 draw, 1 win and 1 defeat.
As I say the Euro U21s is more of a standard tournament (in terms of team strenght and qualification process - it's never as simple as 3 games in 5 days to qualify), additionally over time U21 players are more likely to make the step up to the senior team than U19 players. But it's worth noting that the Spanish U21 at the Olympics last year had a spectacular failure. 3 games (Japan, Honduras, Morocco), only one point, and unable to score a single goal (Spains men's team and the Colombian womens team were actually the only teams that didnt score a goal). Their squad had some high profile players like De Gea, Alba, Javi Martinez, Mata and Isco yet it lost to Japan and Honduras and couldnt beat Morocco. On a global level it's fair to say that Spain have strong youth teams, but all this guff about a clean sweep is false and misleading.
I watched the game, and it was a close encounter, until the last 5 mins it was 0-0 until someone changes the rules of football if a game is 0-0 then it's close... The Germans were not hugely positive, but they were never really hanging on, even on the UEFA site it has shots on target as 3 to 2. Leno, the German keeper, didn't have much more to do than De Gea. It was symptomatic of Spanish footbal, a lot of possesion, but a failure to convert a big share of the ball into concrete chances."Spain edged out Germany 1-0"
One could interpret a 1-0 stat as the losing team being edged out, indicating a close encounter, a slight edge.
If you watched the game you might well have written that Spain were thoroughly deserving winners, Germany were outplayed and fortunate to keep the score down with a resolute rearguard action (with a few forays).
If you did watch the game and still stick with "Spain edged out Germany" then there's nothing more that can be said in conversation.
(http://www.uefa.com/under21/season=2...ups/index.html)
Cheers Edmundo, you know your stuff.
Similar discussion of Spain here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23125937
Some of the readers' comments underneath the main story are quite funny.
I didn't see any of that Tournament or how Brazil played. How come their form apparently took such a huge dip or perhaps Spain were just very poor and had no interest?
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
The standard of participant in the Confed cup would be weaker by and large. Spain were knackered.
There was that element at the confed cup and Brazil were motivated, also Brazil played a different game there, Neymar played out wide, cutting inside.
At the WC, all of a sudden it was Neymar who played the central role and Oscar was put out wide, midfield was always an issue.
Though Brazil benefitted from a few kind decisions against Croatia, didn't dominate the games on their path to the semi final, were missing Neymar and Silva, but all that still doesn't explain to me just how far they slid down the path to resembling a bumbling inept team in a matter of days. That collapse by a team who had made it to the semi finals of the WC was unprecedented.
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