Is Torres secretly a vital piece of Spains dream team?

So the world cup draw was done some hours ago now, and Spain have plenty of reason to be cheery about it. Their opposition are not exactly giants of the world game - Spain will sweep aside Honduras and Switzerland with ease, and Chile wont be much harder. Even the South Americans Spain get to wait for while Villa, Silva and co take their six points arguably easier then any other team in the World Cup will.

Everything is rosy for Spain going into the world cup - they are undefeated in more then 40 games, Villa is scoring all the goals he could ever hope to score - with their group it wouldn't be too absurd to suggest that at the world cup he could get the most goals a player has ever scored at the world cup - 13 is the target David.

It's not as if Villa is ever going to be short of supply either - Xavi? Iniesta? Fabregas? Alonso? Spain could lose their two best players in the Barca pairing and still have one of the best central midfield partnerships at the world cup. You can say the same for every position on the park - the amount of depth Spain have is simply staggering. There is even tiny, tiny talk of dropping Torres - for all of Villa's goals, Torres on the domestic stage is almost a rank above when fit, an all round master of the final third with a capacity for finishing from every possible angle and position. Yet on the international stage he doesn't shine, so from some points of view he could find his position (in the starting 11 at least) under threat. Certainly his rate at Liverpool (more then a goal every 2 games) far outdoes his total for Spain by some margin - in his last 23 games for Spain Torres has scored just 7 goals.

But Torres could well be the final piece in what is currently Spains unstoppable footballing machine. Or at least, it appears to be an unstoppable footballing machine. In theory, there is a gap in the armour that is Spain's dream team.


Case study number 1: Quarter finals of Euro 2008. Spain versus Italy. The footballing maestros versus a dying ember of a side, a side that was deservedly beaten by Holland and should have been out of the world cup against Romania - saved literally by Buffon's savvy hand. Italy were not a good team in Euro 2008.
Yet actually Spain struggled.
Italy do know how to win when they need to - it just didn't work this time around. Organised mass defence prevented Spain from making any serious clear cut chances - for all the class of Xavi, Silva, Iniesta, Villa, Torres (the whole team, lets say to cut to the chase) they failed to make a single clear chance.
Italy did. They were negative - so so negative, but they made more clear cut chances then Spain did. Early in the second half it took some desperate defending from Spain and two desperate saved from Casillas to stop Toni and then Camoranesi socring. Italy had the advantage of height in that game - pretty much the extent of the usefulness of Luca Toni - and they took it, used it. As a neutral supporter in favour of Spain, that was a nerve wracking game because every time the ball was sent into Spains box, you worried.
But Spain largely kept Italy pinned back, went to penalties. Cassillas added more to his best goalkeeper in the world CV, and Fabregas wrote himself into Spanish history. Spains play lauded, Italy's loathed, everyone forgets the game.

And then the Yanks came along.

Case Study 2: Semi finals of the Confederations cup. Spain against the USA. USA were the Jekyll and Hydes of the confeds - they showed some lovely attacking play, but indescision lost them glorious oppurtunites and they paid for it against Italy, and then Brazil. They did not however, pay for it against Eygpt - arguably the most ludicrous final day of a group stage ever was ended with the USA, having been on 0 points at the start of the day, beating Eygpt and Brazil to the second place spot. So therefore its natural that they werent favorites against Spain, who breezed their group with some ease. Even without Iniesta, and with Silva on the bench. Good times for them. Not for long.
The world was denied the chance to see how Spain versus Brazil would turn out by great defensive play by the US of A. Altidore got a decent goal, USA sat back and Spain went something along the lines of 'wait...this isnt fair! theres a brick wall here! damn you Columbus!' and didn't create a great deal - the main one I remember is a Sergio Ramos shot that was superbly blocked. Them Ramos gave compliments to the USA side by gifting them another goal and it was all over.

It wasn't as if this was a sudden thing for Spain - just the game before they were kept out for 78 minutes by a South African side that was ok, but not much more. Spain should, in theory beat every team in the world with their pretty football. In reality teams can set up mass defence, hit their sometimes dubious defence on the counter and see how long Spain try to play one-twos between them.

Spain in these two games reminded me a little bit of Barcelona versus Chelsea just last year - Barcelona may be the best side in the world but it was Chelsea who should've won by about four goals thanks to counterattacking, and no thanks to some very dubious penalty decisions.

So that is their chink, and it is tiny. Most teams wont be able to do it - USA, Italy and South Africa had defenders putting in top class performances against Spain - but some will. Thats where Spain could be caught out. Brazil could do it. England could do it. Italy could do it. Plenty of teams at the world cup could pull that kind of stunt.

That, is why Torres could be so, so important to Spain.
The target man, the striker next to Villa with strength and heading ability. The one who can fashion chances out of nothing - even less nothing then Villa can operate on.
Fernando Torres may shine alot more for Liverpool then he does for Spain. But when the time comes he could be just as vital as he is at Anfield.

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