The Guardian's Fiver on Cowbells 1, Castanets 0*

Phew! It's a good thing that celebrated, squat, slightly penguin-shaped pillar of moral rectitiude, Sepp Blatter, was at Durban Stadium yesterday. Because if Above-Board Blatter hadn't been personally supervising events, many folks might have suspected that jiggerypokery was responsible for the defeat of seemingly invincible Spain by Switzerland, the country of Above-Board's birth and home to Fifa HQ.

How else, such folks might have asked, to explain that a side universally hailed as the best in the world could be beaten by a team who began their qualifying campaign by losing at home to Luxembourg? How else could a free-scoring machine that went into the match having won 19,754 consecutive matches be shut out by a defence led by Philippe Senderos?

Ottmar Hitzfeld knows how else. "We concentrated and were organised from the start," yodled the manager whom the Swiss now worship as Gottmar. "We didn't allow any chances for Spain in the first half and that gave us self-confidence. In the second half, Spain rolled one attack after another and we knew they would open their defence. After we took the lead, we gained even more confidence.''

Simple, see? Especially as Spain could not adapt their approach to overcome Hitzfeld's tactics, suggesting, perhaps, that the most feted team on the planet are mere one-trick ponies, nothing more than footballing Rod Hulls. Or, if you prefer, the international equivalent of Arsenal or Barcelona.

Spain manager Vicente Del Bosque thinks otherwise. That, of course, confirms they are the international equivalent of Arsenal. ''I feel [the win] is an excessive prize for them considering the football they displayed," harrumphed Del Bosque in tones familiar to anyone used to hearing Arsene Wenger suggest that any defeat for his team means not that there is something wrong with that team, but that there is something wrong with football itself.

* no casual racism intended.

Posted By: The Judge on June 17th 2010 at 14:09:18

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