[...] Follow the match highlights as they happen on the Spain vs. Tunisia LiveBlog and stop by to leave your thoughts and comments about the match [...]

Will Spain book their ticket to the next stage with this win…?
Spain 2 vs. Tunisia 0
Scoreline possible..?
Pls. spare me your thought..
Thanks.

This one should be an easily victory for the Spaniards, thus its second leg qualification is for sure. I don’t see problems for “la furia” in 1/8th cause’ group G winner and runner-up are weak rivals.

javier

Although

Viva la furia roja! Spain 3-0 over Tunisia.

Overconfidence is Spain’s biggest enemy.

Pls. spare me your thought..

That must mean something different in Malaysian English than it does in American English. Either that or you’ve just had enough of our commentaries. :)

I won’t be very original, I predict an easy win by La Furia by 3-1.
I missed their match against UKR, I’m willing to see what they have to offer.
2 of my first round picks (Italy and Czech R) had completely disapointing matchs. lets see Spain.

I woundn’t underestimate any teams in this WC as they’re all talented. I predict a challenging game for Spain, but I think they’ll win 3-2. Nonetheless, it’s a great opportunity for Tunisia to stage another possible upset.

Hahaha! Philip! That was witty. lol. The Malaysian fan of La Furia probably meant to ask us to spare him a thought (and a comment) for his question. It was rhetorical; the scoreline is possible.

Heck, its probable! :D

¡Vamos España!

Madre mia, SER says 20K Tunisian fans in Stuttgart with 15K Spanish ones. But the Spaniards are making all the noise!

I want Roland to upload a file of himself singing “¡A por ellos, Oé!” He couldn’t be worse than some of the fans they’ve had on the radio so far.

If we win 5 – 0 I’ll do a freakin flamenco dance while I do it too.

Oh my, if Group H form holds we might just get to see that! I’m holding you to it….

SER announcers mostly picking 3-1, 3-0…. one contrarian picked 0-1 (apparently it worked the other day), and another said 0-0.

Wow, Spain’s already scored!

No, wait, that’s an ad.

26C at the stadium.

Why is everyone whining about the heat? I grew up in a part of America where the temperature in the summer rarely dipped below 30C during the day from May to September. In August it was usually 37-40C. And with oppressive humidity. Yet, we played sports in that weather.

Spain victory here is a step along the way towards what will be an incredible Brazil vs. Spain quarter final. Viva la Furia !!

Here’s to a 23rd unbeaten game in a row for Spain! 3-0!

Does anyone know who the referee is, and where he’s from? :)

I’m 2 for 2 in predictions today and for this one I see a tie 1-1.

Carlos Simon from Brazil is the ref

hello all you fine ladies

Tunisia players look like they are about to poop their pants during the anthem.

Ubi, good to see you around to tell it like it is :-)

Thanks Sal. Ugh… There goes the comment ‘perennial underachievers’ again.

I noticed that Daryl didn’t chide the Spaniards for not singing…. only fair, since their anthem doesn’t have any words. :)

Sal, very true.

spain is goin to humiliate this team

Why doesn’t Spain’s anthem have words? Surely we could come up with some words for it.

Spanish anthem one of the oldest in Europe, dating to 1761.

thanks AL, I try

Hooray for Univision announcers…Even though I can’t understand what they’re saying, at least I know they know what they’re talking about!!

GOOOAAAAL!!! HAHAH JUST KIDDING

Spain beat Ukraine by 4. Ukraine beat Saudi by 4. Saudi tied Tunisia. Therefore Spain will win 8-0.

That Tunisia keeper makes me feel young. Hooray for 40 year old players!

Spain’s anthem used to have lyrics Sal, back in Franco’s time. They don’t use it now, apparently.

Woa..nice calculations over there AJ

From Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal:

“When Dave O’Brien is calling the match for ESPN, I switch to Univision. I don’t speak Spanish, but I’d rather understand next to nothing than listen to someone who knows less about soccer than I do”

im listening to the game on a stream posted by the online sun at
http://clients.mediaondemand.net/theSun/?Channel=1
anyone know of any better ones?

Anyone have Villa for their Golden Boot? Bet you could have gotten good odds for him before the tournament.

damn….

GOALLL!!! Tunisia. Sweet

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO goal!!!!

Warning from Spain!

Breakdown.

Suddenly this one got interesting…

Uh-oh…

“He’s 40 years old, think about that.”

And Ronaldo isn’t even 30 yet and he’s “washed up.”

Yeah, I know goalies age out a lot later than fielders.

Wow. Asleep at the wheel.

Man, the Spanish defense looked disorganized.

Well, I’m for Spain, but this should make the game a ton more interesting.

Wow, what a great goal.

SER: “Tunisia is playing much more organized than Ukraine.”

[...] June 19, 2006 at 7:10 pm · Filed under ubiquitous 7:30 GOOAL! Tunisia! No, really. Mnari scores from close range [...]

Hey, the Spain we all know is back. Maybe the team that beat Ukraine was the Argentina bench in Spanish kits.

Tunisia earned that one every bloody step of the way

We’ll see if this wakes them up or not.

so why isnt Raul playin??/

Ouch. Another Spanish chant has been “Si si si, nos vamos a Berlin” in reference to the final. So one of the commentators just gave us this bit of gallows humor: “Si si si, nos vamos a Madrid”.

Does anyone really think Tunisia can shut out Spain? I don’t

Wow. Another early goal. My habit of tuning into games about 10mins after they start is really letting me down.

“Si si si, nos vamos a Madrid”

Oooh. Just as cruel as singing to English supporters, “You’re going home/you’re going home/you’re going/England’s going home.”

i bet no one knows raul’s last name!!!

Gonzales?

The referee looks old enough to be the Tunisia keeper’s father.

Raul = Spain’s Ronaldo.

Raúl González Blanco.

Tunisia leading??

Tunisia could theoretically pull off an upset against Spain. There are high expectations for them as Spain is a powerful team, but they need to remain focused and on the attack.

At risk of stating the obvious, Spain really has no reason to panic. They have almost a full game to show their superiority, and even a 1-1 wouldn’t be all that bad in pragmatic terms. Sure it’s fun to dream of big scorelines, but they just need to settle down, play to their ability, and trust that quality will lead them to victory.

Daryl,

It’s still 0-0 on the header. COme on, now. Tunisia DID score, right?

Terrific pace to this game. We couldn;t have asked for more from the Tunisian to take th wind out of Iberian sails and ensure that the Spaniards get a little panicky–for entertainment’s sake. Less than a shower of Spanish goals still seems unlikely though.

tunisia needs to beat spain by 4 to make it ironic. oh, if only the saudis had beaten tunisia 4-0.

uh oh I will be rooting for TUN today but on the 23rd – you are on your own. Go TUNA

The Group of Four. I like it!

Spain are still looking very good. The Tunisian defense is very shaky for the moment.

Thanks Darkoze. It’s fixed. I just didn’t quite believe it.

The Spanish passing game is excellent: timing, touch, targets. Just no managing getting past a dogged Tunisian defense yet.

Yellow to Puyol

Spain looks frustrated. Maybe they underestimated Tunisia

Daryl,
Yes, shock is an acceptable and understandable reason for the late change.

Spain maybe got a little too confident after drumming Ukraine it would seem. looks like they don’t know what just hit them

If this field turns to slop, it’s going to work to Tunisia’s advantage.

Of course, with modern drain-through technology you don’t often see muddy fields.

Great play on the line by the Tunisia defender. Saved the goal.

Spain got overconfident maybe??

Spain definitely came in a bit overconfident.

The rain will help Tunisia, but more important is their suffocating 4-5-1…I always love to see how 4-3-3 formations react to the 4-5-1.

It will be interesting to see if Aragones reverts to a 4-4-2. Maybe he could bring on Reyes?

Tunisia took advantage of one chance but Spain was in charge of the game. Spain will prevail in the second half with or without rain.

I don’t think Spain took Tunisia lightly at all, they just failed to finish their chances. Credit Lemerre’s squad for playing a great half. But there is still much futbol to play.

Tunisia has had several good half chances…I expect Spain to continue to press forward, but their 4-3-3 is leaving them very vulnerable to counters.

Also, if Raul comes on I will vomit. He is a shadow of his former self and Reyes should come on before him.

I think the early goal has stunned the Spaniards. They may have came in to the game overconfident because of the early victory, but I think any team would feel confident after winning such a great game. I must admit though that the Ukranians didn’t play to the best of their ability and allowed Spain to take control. Both Tunisia and Spain need to remain focused in the 2nd half especially if the field gets soaked with rain.

It’s still early in the game so I don’t know what would be the greater upset. Nobody expected Ghana to rout the Czechs though.. that was shocking.

Even if Spain loses this one, all they’ll have to do to qualify is beat the Saudis. There’s a reason they aren’t panicking.

This game has been a pleasure to watch….I love the way Spaniards and Argentines play. lots of “de primera” and “paredes”, the way it ought to be!

Spainish win over Ukraine made spain look better than it really is I think. The 4-0 slaughter is more like a 2-0 win in that case. The penalty vs Ukraine was undeserved, after the penalty the Ukraine let go of the game even more, and as we saw today, they just didn’t play near their best vs Spain.

Raul comes on.

There’s such a great expectation for the European and South American powerhouses to excel that it could be detrimental in their ability to play. A lot of the results in the matches were unexpected. It’s unfortunate though that so many teams are receiving a lot of criticism for poor/subpar performances. It’s not easy to emulate a great performance from the past.

I wish every team the best. The matches show why soccer is so great. It leads to unexpected losses and surprise victories.

Ghana totally SPANKED the Czechs. Czechs=#2. THAT was amazing. Yes, it would be an upset to have them beat Spain…but upsetting the #2 team? That would have to be bigger, I believe.

I don’t want to lose to Tunisia. Even a tie would be a disappointment, I’ll admit. But I am very worried about Tunisia’s counteraatack, and Puyol does look like a different player today. Hopefully, coach Aragones will make the necessary adjustments.

I agree with Denis. Let’s see what they have stored for us in the second half.

Tunisia taking it too easy…dont know if they can hold off Spain playing like this for 45 minutes…they could blow a perfect opportunity

Am I dreaming or has not ONE Yellow card been doled out? Still raining? Perhaps FIFA cheaped out and bought 5,000 of the permeable type.

Tunisia is a decent team with some pedigree. They won the African Cup of Nations in 2004. I don’t think comparing this with Ghana’s wins is quite the same. This would be an upset but not a huge one.

I love seeing Fabregas out there. He is so good!

But as for Raul…see my earlier comment.

Vomit vomit.

Vomit vomit.

I see a different attitud from Spain. I’m sure they will score within the first 15-20 minutes of this second half. That will also open the game for them.

Tunisia denied a legit whistle and Spain got a whistle for a dive. what kind of ref is this?

Fabregas is a great young talent indeed.

Argones can’t even look on the sideline. His team isn’t playing poorly. Just need to crack the goal.

Surprised he took Villa out this early.

Should’ve checked the stats. Tunisia : 2 Yellows
Spain : 1 Yellow

Yipes!
Corner kicks.
Spain: 10
Tunisia: Goose Egg

If Tunisia holds on, Spanish fans will be chewing that one over.

Spain may very well still advance with a loss here, but they’d rather not finish the group in second place.

Does anyone know against which group’s winners will 1st and 2nd place of Spain’s group play?

Aside from the shock of the Tunisian goal it appears to be not much of a game. Too bad I think we all could use a barn-burner.

Denis – They play the teams from Group F. France, Switz, Korea

Would be cool to see France and Spain next round. Spain would kille them.

How many of Hierro’s 29 goals were penalties I wonder?

The majority, I would imagine. This same conversation was had on Big Soccer the other day when Spain played.

I’m still trying to figure out why Aragones took out Luis Garcia. I saw him make some fantastic runs and get some free kicks.

Is this one of those cultural things, where Raul has some sort of social security sports pension and the bloated welfare state has to allow him to play until he gets euthanizsed?

This wouldn’t be as big an upset as the Ghana upset — but a nice upset nevertheless. The Tunisian team has more experience at the world cup than the Ghanaian team. But the Ghanaian players are more individually talented. I hope Tunisia wins this one though — so may be two teams from Africa will advance! yay!

Sal,

That’s actually Group G, but otherwise you’re correct.

By the way, the cultre thing was a joke. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Joaquin? Is this the same OUT OF FORM Real Betis winger?

This is just like Lipp taking out Totti in teh US game….desperate overreaction

intresting match, spain may take over Tunisia

atmysports.com

Ha-ha, the Tunisian defenders are huge compared to Spanish attackers, they’re throwing them around.

Two worthless subs. Raul and Joaquin have no business being on the pitch.

Senna had a very pedestrian first half and his decisionmaking wasnt spot-on, so I can understand the change for Fabregas.

Tunisia has no thought of doing anything on offense. They’ll take 1-0.

Thanks Sal. I wonder if France will be able to advance.

3 subs also kills the team’s rhythm….I really am very very puzzled by Aragones’s decisions.

Of course, they do play Saudi Arabia last, and if they win that game they go through (probably)

Even though Tunisian win will make it harder for Ukraine to advance, I hope Spain are defeated here.

Gosh! The Tunisian Goalie sure is shouty!

Tunisia keeping 10 behind the ball and it looks like about 20.

Sun commentator: “The rain on Spain is making them look very plain.”

Like none of that saw *that* pun coming.

The rain on Spain is making them look very plain… LOL
Priceless!!!

The Sun’s Announcers:
“The rain in the stadium is making Spain look so plain.”

With a British accent, he was able to rhyme “Stadium” with “rain” and “plain”.

…..
…..
Look, with a temporary artistic license, it sounded o.k.

Excellent sue of space! Trabelsi for man of the match!

That’s a type of “use” bytheway!

A delightful pun in deed :)

Aragones decisions remind me of a middle schooler at a dance without deodrant….REEKS OF DESPERATION

and I thought Spain will win the cup !!!

dw, I must have wax in the ears….I believe your quote was accurate.

There seems to be friction between the Tunisian players. They’re openly lambasting each other.

¡¡¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLL PARA LA FUUURIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

YES!!!
WELL DESERVED!!!!

And to ETucker’s delight, Raul scores!

Raul saves the day again.

I’m waiting for all you Raul haters to comment…

Roland, I was reading your entry. Finished reading it. Then heard the Sun annoucers announce the goal.

WTF??

DO you have….skills?

I will now eat my own words.

(GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE)

I am happy for Raul; maybe it was the other real madrid player’s fault he had a terrible season (in addition to injury of course)

So, will Spain go for the win, or will they be satisfied with the draw?

But in my defense, a poached goal is nothing to brag about.

Do you think Villa or Luis Garcia would have missed that?

I don’t….

Hold now TUNa… split the points…

If Raul gets a nice finish off a cross, or makes a nice run, I will shut up for the rest of the World Cup. I swear.

Althouh the US would kill to have a poacher of Raul’s calibre.

Rual hater here. Nice goal. I’ll shuddup now :-)

allez les bleus!

OMG ,

I only just now saw the Spain goal, if Tunisia hangs on and ties this it could throw the group into turmoil.

If they win, I am certain Tunisia will have a new National Holiday

:)

Spanish Armada is back

Lawl – was that a burp on Sun’s broadcast…

Torres is a legend in the making.

Torres’ turn. Spain will win the Cup again lol

¡¡¡FUUURIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

¡¡¡FUUURIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

¡¡¡FUUURIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

¡¡¡FUUURIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Well, Spain is through.

What was the Tunisia keeper thinking on that? He was caught in no man’s land. Nice finish Torres.

Aragones, having made a pact with God never to make racist remarks, well at least not toward any French player, is rewarded with a second goal.

Wow, that was a tremendous Fabregas pass.

The nice thing about doing work while listening to the audio, and having lagged video running in the background, is that you get a warning when something’s about to happen. The problem is, I’m ADD enough that I get distracted during the lag waiting for the goal to happen. *s*

But not that time.

Joaquin has looked very dangerous though on the flank. He’s made some excellent runs and added a bit of width to the 4-3-3 (which is normally lacking).

Aragones is smarter than me, what can I say?

i was sleeping …woke up to see both Spanish goals :)

The Tunisian goalie must feel bad now… poor guy. The 2nd goal had better chances of being stopped if he stayed closer to the goal.

Fun game! Quite the fun change of direction!

MORE! I WANT MORE!

FANTASTIC Fabregas pass.

Great finish by Torres too.

Don’t be selfish Roland lol

Impressive turnaround. Two goals from two players who’ve been chided for being underwhelming.

Too bad for Tunisia, who were doing well to defend their slim lead.

Well, Aragones will get his chance to insult the French to their faces if Spain tops the group, France beats Togo, and the SUI-KOR match has a winner.

That wasn’t offside!

Anyone who wondered whether this Spanish team would fold after going down in a match, should now have their answer.

still there are chances for 8 goals.. if espaneol plays like this

Arrg !!!

Nothing like a significant Upset to bolster Football/Soccer and why not have a cindirella!!

Oh well the God’s of socccer have opted to allow spain to come through to the next round.

Where they shall perish of course.

Daryl,
“Ghodhane booked about 10 seconds after coming on. New World Cup record?”

Close, I think. But, wasn’t there some guy in a previous WC who was Yellow carded while he was still on the bench?

Angelo,

This is the kind of game that, if I weren’t pulling for Spain, would be incredibly frustrating and make me think the underdogs never have a chance. (cf GER-POL, ENG-TRI)

But you do have to admit, Spain’s explosiveness adds a bit of excitement to the tournament.

Tunisia just cannot hold a lead for the life of them.

Yes Daryl, that was Caniggia, in the bench of Argentina WC 2002.

And it was a red card!

Should’ve been 2-2 with a better first touch.

Tunisia will need more than 4 shots a game to win against anyone. Go Spain.

Glanced in the stands, amid a sea of fibrillating Spanish flags: an Argentinian flag, as if to say: this world cup is fated to see an encounter between the two powers. And at this point one must admit: before these torrid players, the Brazilians, as we’ve seen them, don’t stand very much of a chance–to say nothing of the absent French, the mottled English, the manageable Italians.

cojones.

How did he swing that? Wasn’t Caniggia one of those players that was supposed to be the ‘next Maradona’, but forgot that Maradona was a legend on the field before he got into problems off it.

.Daryl,

..Here’s the World Cup record for quick yellows…

“However, the daddy of all dugout disciplinary matters, as many of you were quick to point out, featured lank-haired Argentine Worzel Gummidge look-alike Claudio Caniggia, who was sent off for dissent in last summer’s (2002) World Cup finals. A substitute on the bench at the time, the Rangers midfielder didn’t spend so much as a single second on the pitch at any point during the competition.”

Just noticed that as of tomorrow we’ll have two games going on at a time. That should make for a lot of fun in the comments section!

Good call.

3-0 !!!

¡¡¡GOOOOOLLLLLL TOOOOORREEEEEESSSSSS!!!

Spain is holding the lead on penalty scores in this cup! Nifty!

I’m not sure if coming back against Tunisia (which Saudi Arabia managed) proves Spain has the “huevos” to do well, but it is impressive.

And their passing has been fantastic.

Every game in this group has had 4 goals.

How are they live blogging the doubleheaders?

I think they should recruit Roland…

Trav,

This is by FIFA mandate. Back in 1978 there were huge controversies when Argentina “just happened” to beat Peru by the precise number of goals that they knew they needed. Ever since then (I believe, maybe a couple of WCs later) the final group games have always been simultaneous.

What a game for Torres!

believe you’re thinking of cojones…but no, not necessarily.

‘Cajones’ does mean ‘drawers’ (as in furniture) in Spanish. However, the saying is ‘cojones’ , with an ‘o’ and it means ‘balls’, as in having the balls to come from behind!

Vico, from Pasadena, California

Tunisia is still faring better than Ukraine did.

However, they did not manage to beat Saudi Arabia…

After comparatively few cards in the first half, we’re up to seven for the game.

No, 8 now.

Is FIFA paying the refs on a per booking basis?

Daryl,

Your “For the record I had no idea what cajones means. I just did an online translation and it means drawers.”

Hmmm.

Believe you put your “a” where an “o” should go. Try googling “Cojones”.

If you happen to be in a bar in southern Texas and accuse a guy of not having cAjones, I hope you know where the closest exit is.

They take pride in their drawers down there.

Thanks Phillip.

Go Germany!
Go Poland! (I still have some faith)
Go Paraguay!
Go England!

did anyone else see the confederate flag in the spanish crows afer the 3rd goal???

Torres is on fire! Too bad he plays for Atletico…

Spain shows championship material there !!

sebastian – I saw that too. wtf?

it has to be either Spain or Argentina now !

I just hope they can keep the Basque-Catalonia-Madrid infighting to a minimum.

It tends to rear its ugly head in elimination rounds when they encounter adversity….

Trav.

Hehe… I like your attitude!

Sadly, yes, Poland IS going.

vroooom….. vrooom…..

(**SIGH**)

:-(

Darkoze gets to be the official blog jester for that last crack.
: – P

sebastian,

thought i saw the confederate flag, but then thought i might have been imagining things. now i’m convinced it was there. question is why?

There was also a huge controversy in 1982 when Germany and Austria “somehow” managed to play to the score they needed for both to advance. It was after that one that they instituted the simultaneous games.

Philip,

Oh well, at this point might as well go for the Ramparts and Red Rockets in Air.

SPAIN 8 – Tunisia 1

Why not dream big and aspire to the stars…

:)

To your point, yes an explosive outbreak add excitement to the game but think of it … A new National Holiday could have arisen out of this match.

LOL

Awesome game. Great job, Spain.

It’ll be interesting to see who they’ll play next round.

The simlutineous final games of round 1 began after Germany and Austria played to a 1-1 draw and not much effort to score anymore or win at all since they already knew their previous group’s result and a draw between them would advance both. Thsi left out a team from Africa, but I don’t recall which country. They protested such lame actions by Germany and Austri and the schedulng was changed as a result of that for subsequent World ups, although I don’t remember either which World Cup this happened in. I do no it was not the Argentina ‘78 one though.

Yep. The dictionary won’t recognize it because it is slang.

daryl,

My guess is, it’s the same odd sort of cultural transfer that has made John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” into a worldwide soccer chant. I doubt that it has anything to do with the Confederacy rising again.

Pablo,

Thanks, I thought I was forgetting some funny business from 1982 but I forgot those details. So Mexico ‘86 was the first one with enforced simultaneous kickoffs right?

OK, here’s a semi-official-looking entry for cojón
http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=coj%F3n

I thought i saw the confederate flag also. I replayed the video and Sure enough t was There!

Did the Spainards side with the South during the Civil War?

Angelo,

Perhaps this will be known in the Kingdom of Spain as “The Seleccion Didn’t Choke Day”

Just looked it up. Sorry, made a miskatek. The Germany-Austria game happened in ‘82, Germany was winning 1-0 and at that point both teams knew they would both advanc leaving Algeria out. All three teams would finish with 3 victories but goal avarage favored Germany and Austria. Algeria had concluded their final match earlier and had hopped that either Austria would win, or Grmany beat Austria by more than 1 goal. Germany and Austria just passed the ball around with no intention of scoring for the remainder of the game after Germany scored.

I meant “spaniards” My spelling sucks. Sorry

wow,,,,,,,,,, my words came true

atmysports.com

In 1974 West Germany lost 2-1 to East Germany and both went on to the next round.
The Germany vs Austria fiasco was in 1982 and the team eliminated was Algeria.

Impossible for Spain to not qualify now, and almost impossible to not come in first.

Group H has been brilliant. Four goals every game!

Yes, Mexico ‘86 was the first one with simultaneous kickoffs. As for Argentina ‘78, that was the world cup where round two had two groups of 4 to play round robin style and the winners of each group would advance to the final game. Argentina needed 6 goals to win the gorup, and just by ‘coincidence’ they scored the 6 needed against Peru, who not only had been dubbed so far the BEST goalie of the tournament, BUT he was an argentinian born player who nationalized himself Peruvian… Fishy fishy indeed.

Argentina only needed 4 goals against Peru. They scored 6, and went to the finals instead of Brazil. :(
After that, FIFA finally got rid of that stupid round robin play for the finals.

The Spanish really are Professors of The Passing Game — they have 3 serial passers in their starting midfield (Xavi, Alonso, Garcia) and another one, Fabregas, on the bench. Good stuff to watch if you hate “Pump it long into the box” stuff.

Ooops. Sorry, they used that one more time in 1982.
!986 is when they moved back to sudden death play.

With this kind of performance by Spain they definitely have the game, ball movement and speed to make it to the final. The quarter final with Brasil will be interesting but Spain have the speed to expose the slow Brasil back field and take advantage of the open spaces created.

I think it will be Argentina vs Spain in the final.

Was the Confederate flag because of Aragones’ comments toward Henry?

Why the hell would a Spanish fan be waving a Confederate flag?

Perhaps it was just a bonafide American Southerner who found himself seated in the midst of the Spanish support.

I am a spanish fan, who has just loved watching his team do a great performance even though we were losing (not as many of my fellows here, who just fell into this natural and “earned” pesimism it characterizes us after so many underachivements -you should see the pub atmosphere I was watching the game at while we were loosing).
Regarding the Confederate flag, let me tell you that this item symbolizes the rebel character of many individuals/sociaties againt the establishment. It has got nothing to do with the US civil war, but just with the option chosen by anyone to be a rebel.
Related to the spanish political situation (not only today´s, but historical), has a lot to do with a feeling of being the losers of a war (spanish civil war), or a self thought oppressed country (Basque country, Catalonia, Galicia…)… or just a punk or anarchist fighting for his own ideals.
Maybe just anyone who wants to show a rebel character…

Was the Confederate flag because of Aragones’ comments toward Henry?

The confederate flag is basque country of spain flag.

They copied it from USA.

http://images.google.es/images?q=basque+country&hl=es

[...] Spain vs Tunisia | LiveBlog | Spain World Cup Gear, Tunisia World Cup Gear [...]

For Alvaro, this’s just for giving u some information: Basque Country flag is not like Confederate flag but yeah, it’s like United Kindom’s one(changin’ colours, of course). U could verify in http://www.fotw.us/flags/es-pv.html. Sorry but i can’t let this mistake pass.

I really wanted spain to loose.

I can’t forgive what Aragones said about T. Henry. I would have love to watch Spain loose to an African teams as payback.

Maybe they’ll get taken out by Ghana later. Would love to see the hurt in his eyes.

Racism is football is terrible.

On the bright side, Fabregas is a genius.

Oh come on Damon. We shouldn’t kick the Spanish players just because their coach is a dufus. They are playing some of the best passing footie in the competition, so for the good of the game I hope they continue to prosper.

The only African team likely to go through is Ghana……and we know who’s expense that would be at!!! :-(

Tunisia always makes it to the world cup at the expense of good african teams and they always SUCK. They are the worst african team in the tournament. Morocco should have been there instead.
I wish they could ban them from the next world cup. I just can’t stand this shame of Africa crappy tunisian team.

Ok the confederate flag is meant as a racist gesture,belive me the Spaniards know exaclty what that flag represents,the German police are cracking down and arresting anyone with hate symbols,the confederate flag is however not as blatant.The Spaniards are well known racists in europe these days(ask the english).In a twist of fate France will be playing Spain in a knock out game lets go France! i hope Henry socres the winning goals and accidently kicks the ball in Aragonas Face.(sorry i did not mean the ball in the face thing)i hope they send those dirty nast racist Spianards(Fans,coaches and players alike)back to Spain they do not belong in the World Cup.