It was not supposed to turn out like that: mighty Spain were left in shock after losing their World Cup opener, 1-0 against Switzerland.
“You leave with a feeling of complete emptiness,” captain Iker Casillas admitted after the game on Wednesday in Durban. “It’s been a great blow. It’s been a misfortune of football. It’s a real blow to start like this,” playmaker Xavi Hernandez agreed. “We weren’t expecting this, to be honest.:
European champions Spain, who won all their World Cup qualifiers, were sunk by their minnow rivals. To give a clear idea of the David-and-Goliath setting, suffice it to say that Switzerland had never managed to beat the Spaniards: in 18 games before Wednesday, the best they had attained were three draws.
And this time they were facing what is arguably the best team in Spain’s history, even if some players are not quite at their best.
Young Sergio Busquets, making his World Cup debut on Wednesday, was most blunt in his description of the players’ post-match mood. “We had never thought about starting like this,” he said. “We could not even think about a draw. We had a great drive, many expectations. Things have got complicated for us.”
Spain, on everybody’s list of candidates to the World Cup title despite never having won the tournament, played better than their Swiss rivals and even hit the cross bar once. But they still failed to shine.
“Perhaps we have not had very, very clear chances, but I do think we deserved more from this match,” Casillas said. “We have dominated play, and they’ve scored on the only chance they’ve had,” Xavi said.
While this is not quite true, since the Swiss also hit the woodwork once, Spain did indeed dominate play, with 63 per cent of ball possession. What almost no one was expecting was that the giants would fail to score against lowly Switzerland.
— DPA