Piggy In The Middle: Spain beat France easily

Spain 2 France 0

Laurent Blanc 

Ugh. This was a meeting that promised so much eye candy, pitting France’s swashbuckling forwards against the Spanish champions. Instead, Spain inflicted a slow and suffocating death on France that was, quite frankly, unpleasant to watch.

The match was a cruel 90 minute game of piggy in the middle. It could be argued that it was won and lost not on the pitch but in the fevered mind of French coach Laurent Blanc. Blanc looked like he’d lost a lot of sleep dreading the prospect of containing the Spaniards and by sunrise his mood had slipped into paranoia. The eventual team selection was so incoherent France had two right backs.

Former world cup winner Blanc was supposed to be the man to restore Gallic flair and pride to Les Bleus. His record since taking over in 2010 was excellent, even if he had courted controversy with talk of imposing “race quotas” limiting black and Arab youth players (Blanc soon changed his tune when he realised that he'd be left with a squad of just Lloris in goal, Franck Ribery, and that bloke who used to present Eurotrash) .

Rumours of yet another squad bust up surfaced after France’s defeat to Sweden in their third championship game. Samir Nasri was said to have been at the centre of the unrest despite being Man Of The Match in their opening fixture against England. Blanc dropped Nasri for the Spain game, although he did make an appearance late as sub. After the defeat, French journalists tried to get a comment from the player: “Always looking to write some shit on us. F*ck you, go f*ck your mother son of a bitch", opined Nasri after some thought.  

In the end France were as disorganised and tame as they had been during their disastrous World Cup showing in 2010. Spain’s first goal was the result of an unmarked forward run into the box by Xabi Alonso. Florent Malouda, charged with stopping this kind of thing, watched disinterestedly as Alonso huffed past him like a man who was catching a different bus.

Despite an accomplished victory, the sheer tedium of the game will have done little to stem watchers’ growing weariness of Spain’s tiki taka talents.

After the game, ITV moved onto other matters: England’s quarter final game against Italy. There were various video pieces and interviews to raise the tension. Then Chiles breathlessly pushed his pundits for pre-match analysis. First Roberto Martinez. Then Jamie Carragher. Chiles wanted more. He reached for a crescendo.

“So will we be seeing England in the semi finals on Thursday?” he pleaded!

“Roy?”

Chiles turned desperately to Roy Keane for judgment. Roy looked back at Chiles.  

“I don’t think so”, Roy replied, frowning.

Roll credits.