Absolutely Fabregas

Published on Saturday 28 June 2008 19:45

DAVID VILLA, their top scorer, is injured; the best striker they have left, Fernando Torres, has managed only one goal in his last five hours of international football; and their most vaunted forward of recent times, Raul, is sitting back in Madrid. And yet somehow Spain go into this evening's Euro 2008 final as favourites. The declining importance of the centre-forward could hardly be more sharply illustrated.

The Villa-Torres partnership was highly praised at the start of the tournament and justifiably so. Their skills seem complementary and they seem to share an understanding, an awareness of the runs each is likely to make.

Anecdotal evidence is in their favour, but the statistics tell a more complex story. In the 296 minutes Torres has spent on the pitch, Spain have scored five goals; in the 275 Cesc Fabregas has spent on the pitch they have scored seven. Two players blending well is not necessarily enough, and the praise the Spain coach Luis Aragones lavished on Torres after the semi-final victory over Russia could, in retrospect, be interpreted as a way of heading off potential criticism of a player whose ability to score goals at Anfield is far in excess of his ability to score them anywhere else.

The suggestion there is any kind of Torres crisis, though, seems exaggerated. The issue, rather, is tactical. At this tournament, there have been two intersecting themes of tactical development. The victory of 4-5-1 over 4-4-2 now looks decisive – it is surely significant that both finalists began the tournament with two strikers and have since switched to fielding only one up front – while Euro 2008 has also seen a swing back towards technique from physique. Those two strands meet in Fabregas.

The increasing focus on the physical development of players in recent years has been widely decried as a bad thing, as something that would inhibit skill. It may turn out that the truth is just the reverse.

Perhaps there can no longer, at the top level, be portly maestros like Jan Molby and John Robertson, or hard-drinking mavericks like George Best and Ariel Ortega, but there is nothing that says that skilled players cannot be fit, and if teams all are meticulously prepared, then there is little chance of a lesser team out-muscling a skilful side.

Fitness and organisation in themselves are no longer enough to win a tournament. Germany may be at the muscular end of the spectrum, but that attacking midfield trident of Lukas Podolski, Michael Ballack and Bastian Schweinsteiger has flair and skill.

Arsene Wenger recently spoke of his joy that Fabregas can still thrive in the modern game. "In a period when football goes more towards athletes, he is a player," he said. "If you have the quality, you don't need to run 100 metres in 10 seconds. Intelligence helps a lot, and it's good to see in the modern game that players of average size in a normal body can still succeed." Yet what is more remarkable is that at the start of the tournament, Fabregas was kept out of the Spain side by three midfielders of a similar lack of stature: Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez and David Silva.

The injury suffered by Villa means Fabregas should start this evening in a diminutive attacking midfield line, with Marcos Senna holding behind them. That was the shape Spain adopted when Villa's hamstring went against Russia and it may just be that, counter- intuitively, the absence of the tournament's top scorer has helped Luis Aragones happen upon his best system.

The first Russia game was a freak. While the clinical nature of Spain's finishing was impressive, three of their four goals were the result of defensive errors. They then struggled against Sweden, before Villa got them out of jail in injury-time. In that game the accusation directed at their midfield that they are too similar seemed just. Even as Sweden were forced deeper and deeper, they ended up passing the ball in front of them.

Against Italy in the quarter-final it was a similar story, as they dominated possession without looking especially penetrative. They did, though, look rather more purposeful once Fabregas had been introduced just after the hour. Spain's best performance, though, came after half-time during their second encounter with Russia. Perhaps Spain would have walked the game anyway – they were on top in the minutes before Villa departed – but it was only after Fabregas had come on that they began to convert their superiority into goals. "Whenever Cesc has been given a chance to come in he has shown his character and his good personality," said his Arsenal team-mate Emmanuel Adebayor. "He showed what we know about him – he's calm on the ball. I would love to see him start at the beginning of the game."

He is likely to have that opportunity this evening. It is not just an issue, though, of Fabregas's quality: it is the possibilities offered by the shape when he is included and Spain are left with just one forward. From a defensive point of view, the 4-1-4-1 Spain adopted allowed them to pen back the Russian full-backs whose marauding had so troubled Holland, while also, as Aragones himself acknowledged, giving his own full-backs more licence to add their weight to the attack. As Senna quashed Andrei Arshavin, suddenly it was Spain who had the greater range of options.

Their darting, skilled midfielders were then able to keep the ball from Russia, while Fabregas had the incisiveness to open up an admittedly fragile Russian rearguard. Germany are not necessarily that much better at the back, but their extra muscle in midfield will make them tougher to out-pass.

"I don't think we have to be worried about Germany being taller than us," Pepe Reina insisted. "Football is played on the ground. We have beaten big teams like France, Italy and England recently so we have nothing to fear."