Word: villas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Spain is everything you want in a champion. From goalkeeper Iker Casillas to strikers Torres and David Villa, Spain was superb in every area of the pitch, a paragon of possession, of knife-edge passing, and, for once, capable of imposing its style on everyone. The notable exception was the quarterfinal match with Italy, but that, too, marked this Spanish team as special - locked into a defensive mud-wrestling match, Spain resisted its historical urge to attack at any cost, even at the risk of committing the cardinal sin for a Spanish footballer: being boring. In its semifinal against Russia...
...against Sweden in winning the second game. Its second squad squashed a disinterested Greece in the third game of the first round. Then, in a monumentally awful game with Italy, Spain unloaded 80 years of futility against the Italians by outlasting them on penalties. The flowing attacks of David Villa and Fernando Torres, the nearly choreographed ball possession of Inesta and Xavi Hernandez were missing. But Spain no longer carried history on its back like a refrigerator...
...Casanova talents, is publicly pushing for Benedict to change the Communion rules for remarried Catholics. A story in the Italian daily he owns, Il Giornale, recounted how the 71-year-old Prime Minister last Saturday passed up Communion, but asked the local bishop at the chapel near his villa on the island of Sardinia to reconsider the standing rules. Bishop Sebastiano Sanguinetti reportedly responded: "Go tell that to someone higher than me." There was no indication that Berlusconi had raised the matter when he met the pontiff earlier this month at the Vatican...
...coach, the Dutchman "Lucky" Guus Hiddink. What the Russians did is learn and adapt in the course of a long tournament. In their first game, against Spain, the Russian back line played too far up the field and got torched by the Spanish front of Fernando Torres and David Villa. They weren't going to make that mistake against the speedy Dutch, and kept two defenders deep, never allowing the Netherlands to stretch the game as they had done so successfully...
...counting Germany out is always a bad idea. But Holland against Spain - you can imagine a 5-3 final score - could be the game of the tournament, assuming the Spaniards can manage a way through a depleted Italy. And why not? Spain has two superb finishers in Torres and Villa and an equally lethal midfield. The Italians, who turned their first round into a three-part opera - tragedy (vs. Holland), desperation (vs. Romania) and redemption (vs. France)- are going to need some new actors. Italy's maestro Andrea Pirlo is suspended, as is their Rottweiler defensive midfielder Gennaro Gattuso...