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Playing in Istanbul is never easy for visiting teams. Similarly to most stadiums in South America, the crowd is loud, hostile, and never lets up in the entire 90 minutes of play. Fatih Terim counted on the crowd to provide a twelfth man to his team as they were meeting Spain for the second time after a 1-0 loss at the Bernabeu on Saturday.

Spurred on by a frantic crowd, the Turks were the first to get on the scoresheet at the 25th minute after some lazy defending by Pique and Marchena. At the other end, Volkan Demirel had a relatively quiet first half as Spain had settled for a 4-5-1 formation which isolated Torres in front. Without proper support, the Liverpool striker was relatively harmless. La Roja tried to respond by pushing up Silva and Riera on the wings, but Turkey was well organized defensively this time around. Instead of running around like mad dogs, they efficiently used the offside-trap to prevent the speedy Spanish forwards from running behind their backs.


Spain finally got a break at the hour mark when a hand-ball was signaled inside Volkan's box. Alonso easily converted the penalty kick to make it 1-1. The visitors picked up a considerable amount of steam after their goal. Much of that was caused by the entrance of Santi Cazorla in Senna's place. The switch meant that Spain would play an offense-minded 4-2-3-1 with Xavi and Alonso as the holding midfielders and Riera, Silva, Cazorla as the attacking options supporting Torres. Although Spain got a much better handle on the ball from that point on, the final ball was still severely lacking.

Finally, it was substitute Daniel Guiza (who came in for Torres, at the 85th minute) who engineered the winning goal with a superb run down the right wing and a low cross to Riera who slid the ball in between Volkan's legs. The goal came at the 91st minute a play, a real downer for Turkey who are 0-2 against Spain in this round of qualifying.



Turquia Vs España 1-2 Eliminatorias Sudafrica 2010 Resumen - video powered by Metacafe

Spain's line-up: Iker Casillas; Sergio Ramos, Gerard Pique, Carlos Marchena, Joan Capdevila; David Silva (Sergi Busquets, 74th), Marcos Senna (Santi Cazorla, 65th), Xavi Hernandez, Xabi Alonso, Albert Riera; Fernando Torres (Daniel Guiza, 85th).

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Days before the match opposing Spain's national selection to Turkey's, Fatih Terim said that he expected his players to come out hard and choke La Roja's midfield. This tactic effectively prevented the Spanish players from finding their rhythm in the first 30 minutes of the match, and two important saves from Iker Casillas in the opening stages allowed the game to stay scoreless.

The lack of Turkish threat from the 30th minute to the final whistle seemed to coincide with Arda Turan's disappearance after picking up a groin injury early in the game. With his leg constantly throbbing, the Galatasaray star wasn't as dangerous as he was in the beginning of the first half. Meanwhile, the Spanish players were slowly picking up steam after spending much of the first half patiently probing their visitors' defense.

The home side finally found the back of the net in the 60th minute with a bizarre goal scored by Barcelona defender Pique. After a free-kick, the ball somehow went over all the players in the box towards the far post only to bounce on Ramos' thigh, go back across the six-yard box where it was tapped in by Pique. After the goal, Spain immediately switched to a 4-5-1 formation with Juan Mata coming in for David Villa as Fernando Torres stayed alone in front. Leading by one goal against a team that had spent all its energy pressuring the midfield in the first half, the red shirts then proceeded to establish their possession game, a trademark of the Euro 2008 winning squad.



Similarly to the Euro's semi-final against Russia, Spain's passing game only drained the Turkish players even more. The entrance of David Silva for the final quarter brought a breath of fresh air on the field. Suddenly, the Spaniards had technically-gifted and agile wingers on both sides of the pitch, effectively canceling out Turkey's primary way of attack. The home side had a couple more scoring opportunities in the final minutes of the game on long-range shots but the 1-0 score was more than enough. Three points is all that matter after all.

Spain's line-up: Iker Casillas; Sergio Ramos, Raul Albiol, Gerard Pique, Joan Capdevila; Santi Cazorla (David Silva, 76th), Marcos Senna, Xabi Alonso, Xavi Hernandez; David Villa (Juan Mata, 63rd), Fernando Torres (Joseba Llorente, 87th).

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England – Kazakhstan: 5-1
After their convincing win against Croatia one month ago, England's encounter against Kazakhstan looked like a mere formality. Although, the home team dominated the first half, they couldn't get close enough to really test goalkeeper Alexander Mokin. Most of their attacking play revolved around using Theo Walcott's speed, but the young winger's crosses rarely found their way through. Furthermore, the visitors used an efficient offside trap that often caught Heskey out of the play.

England finally came alive in the second half when Mokin misplayed his exit on a corner kick, leaving the net wide open for Ferdinand's header at the 51st minute. Then, it was simply 'fire away' for the English squad who scored at almost every ten minutes (own-goal at the 63rd, Rooney at the 75th and 85th, and Defoe at the 89th). They had a bit of a scare at the 67th minute when Ashley Cole, perhaps suffering from a mental blackout at that moment, sent the ball straight to the visitors' striker who didn't miss his chance after being unlucky for most of the game. The score was 2-1 at that point, and the fans mercilessly booed Cole until the final minutes of the game. Though the goal didn't really have an impact on the bottom line, it's exactly the kind of thing England should avoid if they really want to dominate. Surprisingly, Beckham played better than Walcott on the right side when he came in. Still, Walcott is doing a pretty good job and I think Capello found the right way to use both players in an efficient manner.



Spain – Estonia: 3-0
Once again, the opposition was no match for La Roja who had another easy night on their hands. Two quick goals in the first half took care of squashing any hopes the Estonian might've had. The third goal scored by Puyol was simply icing on the cake.

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Once again, I was in class during the majority of these games. The only match I was able to watch in its entirety was Canada against Mexico which was a one-way traffic in favor of the Mexicans.

Mexico – Canada: 2-1
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Unfortunately, I wasn't able to watch any of the games yesterday since I was in class. So this is just a list of some of the matches' results and some comments.

Spain – Armenia: 4-0
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Canada – Honduras: 1-2
Although it was only their second match of the CONCACAF's third round of qualifyers, the game against Honduras on Saturday was a must-win for Canada if they had any hope of going far into qualifications. Indeed, so far Canada has only played at home and got one point out of six. Mexico will be their next guest and that won't be an easy one either. After that, they'll have to travel into an hostile environment to grab as much points as possible. So, unless they believe in miracles, Canada is toast.

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The UEFA's qualifyers for the 2010 World Cup started on Saturday with more than 40 teams playing their first group match during that day. I was able to watch only two games (and two more for the CONCACAF zone) due to scheduling conflicts - England against Andorra and Spain against Bosnia-Hezegovina.

Andorra – England: 0-2

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Last night, Canada played their first game of the World Cup's third round of qualifying at the much hated BMO Field in Toronto against Jamaica. Compared to the match between Haiti and Suriname, this one was a real snooze-fest, nothing happened apart from the two goals, and both teams played as if they were more afraid to lose than anything else. So, this won't be a full match report, just a couple of observations I'd like to share with you guys.

First of all, possession was shared evenly between the two teams, so trying to guess who would win was a toss-up really. What Canada lacked in speed and individual skills, they made up for it by having a tight unit cohesion. In those cases, a team has to be sure that everyone is pulling in the same direction because one tiny little mistake by one individual can destroy any sense of accomplishment for the group, and that's what happened last night


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The CONCACAF's third round of qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup started last night with all teams of the region playing their first match out of three round-robin, home-and-away games in four-team groups (similar to the UEFA Champions League group stage format). Caribbean island Haiti kicked off the night by staging a dramatic comeback at the Stade Sylvio Cator in Port-au-Prince to draw 2-2 against Suriname.

The home team grabbed the bull by the horns from the opening whistle, putting themselves in attack-mode straight away. Faced with a relentless onslaught early on, Suriname decided to defend and counter on the break. Though Haiti dominated the half with nice passing plays, speed along the wings, and great technical skills, it was Suriname who found themselves in the lead at half-time with two goals from striker Wensley Christoph. The first goal, scored at the 33rd minute, was the result of poor defensive play by Wagneau Eloi's troops. After goalkeeper Fenelon saved the initial shot, the rebound was let loose inside the penalty box with no Haitian player picking it up. When a defender finally tried to clear it after a few frantic seconds, Christoph managed to steal the ball from him and fire it past Fenelon. The goalkeeper had no chance to stop the close-range shot, and received no support from his defense. Initially, when the ball was loose, Haiti's right-back had the right reflex to protect the near post while Fenelon returned to his position. But once Christoph had the ball, I think that the right-back could've challenged the striker by stepping right in front of him. Instead, the defender stayed on the line, giving enough time to Christoph to look up, see where the defender was posted and shoot between both the defender and the goalkeeper. Those two defenders (the right-back and the one who failed to clear the ball) weren't the only one at fault. The midfielder also failed to pick up Christoph, thinking that his teammate had full control of the ball. In short, this was one colossal breakdown by the Haitian defense who conceded a goal in Suriname's first real attack. Later on, in the first half's extra-time, Christoph would score his team's second on a counterattack. It was only the second time Suriname had penetrated Haiti's 18-yard box, and it was the second time they scored. While Haiti had bombarded Aloema's net - coming close several times - Suriname had two opportunities, two goals


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