Despite an aggressive first-half play by their opponents, Spain cruised
to the semi-finals with a 3-0 win against Nigeria last Sunday in Fortaleza.
Nigeria, led by Ahmed Musaab, kept Spanish goalkeeper Victor Valdes on
his feet with seven scoring opportunities, an incredible feat against La Roja. Spain wasn’t its usual
formidable self, and missed several goals in the first half.
The red-and-yellow team was fortunate in that Nigeria couldn’t take
advantage of their scoring opportunities as well. Still, the green team’s defenses
were no match for the Spanish attack led by Jordi Alba and Fernando Torres.
Alba scored the first goal in the match three minutes into it after a superb
pass from Andres Iniesta. Striker Roberto Soldado, for his part, failed to
extend Spain’s 1-0 lead over Nigeria at halftime.
On the Nigerian side, Jospeh Ideye took a dribble from Efe Ambrose, but
couldn’t convert it into a goal seven minutes before halftime. Also, Mohammed
Gambo missed a scoring chance courtesy of Musaab at the 73th minute.
Soldado was replaced by Torres at the 60th minute. The
Chelsea striker caught a well-executed cross from Pedro to score the match’s second
goal, which is also Torres’ fifth out of six goal attempts in the 2013 Confederations
Cup.
In no time at all, Spain took over the role of aggressor. At the 88th
minute, Alba sealed Nigeria’s fate with a goal that was his second and Spain’s
third.
Coach Vicente del Bosque’s team will face Italy Thursday evening for
the semifinals.
Photo credit: Steindy (talk) 13:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC) (Own work) [GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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