I've been listening to an "Are Spain boring?" debate all the way home

And you've all had and heard similar today, I'll bet. For me, there's a difference between Boring and Not Thrilling, and I place Spain in the latter category - although when they picked the pace up in the later stages last night, they were wonderful to watch and held a real air of menace.

But they weren't and didn't at the start, and they haven't been exciting for much of the tournament, I think. Yes, it's admirable and yes you have to applaud the control and the discipline and the technique etc, but it doesn't begin to stir the blood until it begins to speed up.

At the risk of being shouted down and/or ridiculed, I suggest that if someone were to trace the passage of the ball in last night's game with even a thin black line, starting from kick-off, after 25 or 30 mins we'd have crossed out the halfway line almost completely while leaving those in and around the areas mostly untouched.

And no I'm not advocating banging it forward and running about a lot - the Spanish method is clearly, definitely, obviously the better way to play. But they could be a little more adventurous without giving up their principles, surely?

And yes they were obviously sitting the midfield quite deep to nullify Germany's speed on the break - but did they need to be similarly careful in their approach to Paraguay?

No, IMHO, they're not boring. They're really quite interesting. Documentaries are interesting. Wolverine was spectacular. Somewhere between the two would be just fine, thanks.

Posted By: Sugbad The Bad, Jul 8, 19:09:01