Superfluous Rants

Both Argentina and Spain were victorious in their pre-World Cup international friendlies today. Gonzalo Higuain scored the only goal for Diego Maradona’s Argentina against Germany while Spain easily beat France by a score of 2-0. Elsewhere, England had to come from behind to beat Egypt 3-1 at the Wembley. Peter Crouch scored twice and now has 20 goals in 37 appearances for England. Crouch is definitely someone to look out for in South Africa. While not a definite starting choice, he will be very impactful off the bench.
From what I have seen of the Argentina match, the final score of 1-0 didn’t do the side justice. They could have easily scored a couple of more goals. It was really good to see Maradona finally prefer in-form Higuain over Sergio Aguero. I still don’t understand the inclusion of Juan Veron however. I feel someone like Inter’s Esteban Cambiasso would be a better choice in the midfield. Either ways, this was one of the better showings by Maradona’s side and a win against Germany will definitely boast the team morale going into the World Cup. On a side note,  Angel Di Maria is pure awesome, it was magic every time he had the ball. I understand ManU and Chelsea are going to fight to sign him this offseason.
Finally, Spain continued their formidable run thanks to two first half goals from David Villa and Sergio Ramos. Despite a few initial threats from France, the game was all Spain. I was glad to see Vicente del Bosque using Fernando Torres only for one half as he just came off the injured reserves for Liverpool.
Overall it was a satisfying day of international football, a great prologue of things to come in the summer from South Africa.