Spain comes up against an all attacking and exciting Russian team in the Semi Final of Euro 2008 on Thursday in Vienna. When they met in the preliminaries, Spain swept aside Russia with an attacking style that ended 4 to 1.
For an ordinary spectator, Russia can as well forget about turning the tables on Spain. However, the history of soccer is full of cases where a team loses in the preliminaries only to emerge tops in a subsequent encounter in the tournament. In 1954 World Cup, Hungary thrashed Germany only for the latter to win the rematch in the final and lift the world title. So there are precedents where a team losing early in the tournament to another gets so motivated that they overcome the same opponent who beat them in the subsequent rounds.
Despite that hint of optimism, there are cases where a team that won in the preliminaries still goes on to win in a rematch albeit with a smaller margin. In the 2002 world cup, Brazil beat Turkey twice. In Euro 1996, Germany also beat the Czech Republic twice to win the championships. But the challenge is an enormous one. Given the psychological lift of the Russians after disposing off Sweden and Netherlands in succession, Spain will be hard pressed to kill that drive in the Russian players. Against Netherlands, the young Russian team played fluent football with flair and mobility that left the former stranded. Yet if there was a team that was highly rated after the preliminary rounds, that team was the Netherlands.
Teams that lose early such as Russia tend to identify costly loopholes which are corrected over time. Whereas team's such as Spain, that have been on a roll and have not lost, may get carried away and only discover when it is too late that they have defensive weaknesses that have not been exposed. If there is a team to expose Spain's weakness, then it is Russia. Despite having one of the best attacking combination of Torres and Villa in the tournament, Russia stands a good chance.
Thus Spain may be the top dog and Russia the under dog but it will only be the final whistle that will separate the winner from the loser.
