On Tuesday, they will take on either Italy or Belgium at London's Wembley Stadium and it is highly unlikely they will get away with the kind of sloppy, ineffective football they played against the Swiss if they are to make the final. Once again they dominated possession on Friday and attempted a staggering 1,008 passes, completing 902 of them - however, their problem was that very few of them posed any sort of threat to the Swiss defence. For all their possession they were surprisingly sloppy at times, needlessly surrendering the ball in dangerous positions that the Swiss were happy to exploit, not least when Sergio Busquets lost the ball in the lead-up to their equaliser. The only thing more ineffective than Spain's passing was their finishing: of a whopping 27 chances in the game, nine were blocked and 10 were on target and though Swiss keeper Yann Sommer was superb, many did not trouble him too much. Luis Enrique now has four days to work out what he wants his team to be, because this toothless "tiki-taka" passing throwback may not cut it at the semi-final stage.

Source: Egypt Today July 02, 2021 19:41 UTC