I am about to get philosophical and equally hypothetical in a reflection on football. I make no apologies for this, but I am warning you up because it might get absurd.
I promised to elaborate in the previous post on my belief that Chile will not beat Spain when they play against each other Friday, the 25th. Though Chile has shown incredible spunk, and demonstrated a fighting spirit that is more than admirable, the factors that will ultimately lead to their defeat are far less tangible then skill and good coaching. Spain, in their opening match against Switzerland, lost zero to one, which was surprising to say the least given Spain's second place ranking in FIFA going into the World Cup. However, their next match against Honduras saw them dominating the field, crushing the Hondurans, and ultimately walking away with a two to nothing victory. For the record, Chile beat both Honduras and Switzerland, both by one goal to nothing.
The reason I believe Spain had such a turn around against Honduras is based mostly in history. Honduras, and Chile like her, are both the products of Spain. For better or worse, Chile and Honduras like the rest of the Latin American world, are Spain's fault. Switzerland has no such shared history with Spain, and as such things were equalized.
No matter what science tells you, it is a fact that the history of memory runs through bloodlines. Honduras, Chile, and Spain share an often sordid history that has left scars in the memories and in the lives of many generations, and the blood that flows in the veins of most of the players remembers, even if the players themselves do not. Spain will not loose to Chile because both sides know, maybe unconsciously, that they occupy very specific roles: those of the conqueror and the conquered. The conquistador and the indio. No matter the anger, or resentment that Chile can drum up against Spain, nor the spiteful pride of being for decades now its own entity independent from Spain, they cannot fight their blood and what it knows--that Chile is merely a bastard child whose entire existence as a country is owed, and therefore belongs to, España.
Spain knows this just as they knew it with Honduras, and por eso, Spain will win.
Granted, should this theory prove entirely wrong, and Chile in fact conquer their formers conquerors, I will be the first to cheer alongside them. However, I'm not holding my breath.
To my viewing, Chile dominated the field against Honduras, keeping almost constant control of the ball. Against Switzerland, there was a lot of energy but very little precision; Chile's one-on-one game was far better, but both teams were tending to pass the ball to either empty space, or someone on the other team.
ReplyDeleteI'm skeptical of the logic:
1. Spain lost to Switzerland but beat Honduras;
2. Chile beat both Switzerland and Honduras;
3. Chile will lose to Spain.
It sounds like a conclusion in search of a chain of reasoning--to me, Occam's Razor suggests that Honduras just isn't a great team, and Chile has a fine chance against Spain. =)