Today I'm going back 16 years to the 2006 World Cup held in Germany and my fourth and final match of that Summer's tour of Germany. This Group H fixture, Saudi Arabia against Spain, was played at the Fritz Walter Stadion in Kaiserslautern and attracted an attendance of 46,000. Kaiserslautern is located in south-west Germany and the stadium itself is named after Fritz Walter, captain of Germany when they won the 1954 World Cup in "the miracle of Berne". Walter played for the Kaiserslautern club throughout his career and made 364 League appearances for the club scoring an incredible 357 goals between 1939-1959. 1FC Kaiserslautern currently compete outside the Bundesliga and indeed fell into the third tier of German football in 2018 but were promoted back into the Bundesliga 2 in May 2022.
The programme shown is the tournament issue as there were no programmes for individual matches apart from the Final itself. As you can see, my copy is a "limited edition" but I doubt that the print run was particularly limited.
The game was another "dead rubber" with the Spaniards having already qualified for the knockout phase following two victories, 4-0 against Ukraine and 3-1 versus Tunisia. Saudi Arabia meanwhile, everybody's favouries to finish bottom of Group H did exactly that, but only just. The Saudis drew their opening game 2-2 against Tunisia but were beaten 4-0 by Ukraine in their second match in Hamburg, a game that I also attended.
Despite expectations of an easy run out for Spain, the game was anything but as Spain struggled to win the game thanks to just a single goal scored by Juanito in the 36th minute. The decision to rest almost the entirety of their first choice eleven was probably the main explanation for Spain's off-colour performance. The second half introductions of Xavi, David Villa and Fernando Torres failed to yield further goals and, in fact, the result should have been worse for Spain as Al Harthi spurned a glorious opportunity by firing over the crossbar with two minutes to go with the goal at his mercy.
Spain finished Group H with an unblemished record of three wins, eight goals scored and only one conceded and went into the Round of 16 to play the second placed team from Group G in Hanover. Unfortunately for Spain, that team happened to be France who had surprisingly won only one of their three games and ended up finishing second to Switzerland. Despite having a well-rested first team, Spain crashed 3-1 to the French and Spanish fans would have to wait a further two years before their "Golden Generation" came good at the 2008 European Championships.
CRB Match No. 1507
Comments
Post a Comment