Lynne Kiesling
I am indulging myself this morning and staying home to watch Spain-Ukraine. My thoughts so far:
-12 minutes in, Spain just scored off of a corner from a header by … you guessed it … Xabi Alonso! Yay!
-Sergio Ramas is very visible and active for Spain
-Spain’s using the offside trap to great effect; Ukraine has only had one shot on goal, and very few drives
-That said, Ukraine is playing pretty well in their first World Cup appearance
So far, it is a beautiful game! Pretty clean.
UPDATE: Just as that was publishing Spain scored a second goal, and Ukraine started to look more disorganized.
UPDATE2: The call and red card against Ukraine just after the half was a horrible call.
I caught the last 20 minutes or so. Spain has looked about the best of the big names – better than Italy, better than Argentina, better even than the loved and lauded Brazilians looked against Croatia.