Mark Lawrenson: Spain’s Premier players can give them the edge

Jun 10 2008 by Mark Lawrenson, Liverpool Daily Post

LIKE a lot of observers of the Premier League in general and Liverpool in particular, I’m looking forward to seeing how Spain progress in these finals.

It will be interesting to see whether Spain have come to win or whether they still need to convince themselves.

There will certainly be plenty of interest back on Merseyside with Liverpool quartet Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso, Alvaro Arbeloa and Pepe Reina all in the squad while Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas is also involved.

They’ve certainly got an intriguing opening match this evening against the Russians, who we know all about after the qualifiers.

I can’t imagine it will be too easy for Spain because Russia’s Dutch coach Guus Hiddink has coached his home nation plus South Korea and Australia in the finals of major tournaments and is a shrewd operator.

One major dilemma for the Spaniards in the past has been the rival factions of the Real Madrid and Barcelona players. They’ve each got their own identity and philosophy and it’s been a case of ‘never the twain shall meet’.

For their sake, they’ll hope to get over that this time and perhaps having more of their players based in the Premier League will help give them a stronger mentality and get away from some of that internal rivalry.

Whereas such passions have torn Spanish football apart for years, there are no such problems for the tournament hosts, Austria and Switzerland.

It’s often said that you need the host nation to do well in order to get an exciting competition but just the fact that it’s taking two of them to stage the finals shows that they’re not major players.

Both of them started with defeats at the weekend although it must be said they were both a bit unlucky.

I’ve been based mostly in Austria so far and their attitude is ‘if we do well then good but if not it doesn’t really matter’.

There just isn’t the same feeling for football in these countries because there are so many other things to do.

At least the small stadia will ensure that all the grounds will be full.