Image from YouTube |
Whilst Spain disastrously conceded a late equaliser to Ronaldo’s Portugal after leading the game 3-2 for about half an hour, Iran dramatically won their first World Cup game since France 1998 against Morocco. This game is a test of Iran’s resolve and Spain’s ability to dig deep and cut through the deep defence that Iran will set up with. Isco and David Silva looked on fire against Portugal and will want to get off the mark in this World Cup soon. Costa was also impressive and bullied the Portugese defence and is likely to do so again so it wouldn’t be a bad bet to predict Costa will add to his tally of two. David de Gea will also hope for a quiter game after his shockingly poor mistake for the second goal and did give Ronaldo a lot of space to shoot into, something he has been criticised of doing previously for both Dimitri Payet in 2016 and Gylfi Siggurdsson in 2017 for United. As for Iran, they must hope and pray not to concede early on as that may work in Spain’s favour as they will pass around the Iranian players and tire them out before the second half. They will have to defend deep in banks of four or five and aim to attack on the counter with the pace they have up front.
Image from the Independent |
Spain are likely to keep the same squad that faced Portugal (Image from the Independent) |