Portugal upsets World Cup Champion Spain

Spain's men's national team played a friendly against an improved Portugal national team Wednesday night in Lisbon where the Portuguese dominated the 2010 World Cup Champions with a 4-0 victory. This loss for Spain is the worst loss they have suffered since 1963 when Scotland defeated them 6-2. Surprisingly the Spaniards have only won three out of the last six games since the World Cup, and against the sub par teams of Liechtenstein, Lithuania and Scotland, and have allowed 12 goals in only four games! It's very unexpected from a team that months ago had the world at their feet at the World Cup in South Africa. This loss especially comes to a surprise with Spain's superstar forwards David Villa and Fernando Torres who have scored a combined total of 71 goals and excellent defense man Sergio Ramos. These players played no where close to their performance at the World Cup. Portugal's versatility up front made the Spanish defense suffer. With three different scorers in Carlos Martins, Helder Postiga and Hugo Almeida Portugal was able to keep Spain's defense busy the entire 90 minute game, scoring first in the 45th minute and scoring consecutively throughout the rest of the match. ESPN covered the match and said it was a great moral win for the Portuguese national team who were defeated by Spain in the second round of the World Cup and forced to go home early.

Here are highlights from the game provided by Youtube:




Worldcorrespondents.com shows a Portugal player
winning a ball from Spain in their 4-0 victory.


The win for Portugal against Spain also brings an interesting spin behind this battle between Portugal and Spain involving the bidding of the location of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The FIFA ethics committee began an investigation of the two nations when it was rumored in an English press that the two nations had conspired to vote for each other so that both countries could have the World Cup in their respected country. There was not enough sufficient evidence to hold either country responsible leaving Spain and Portugal in the running for the 2018 World Cup along with England, Russia, Belgium, and Holland. These two countries  hope that together they can bring the World Cup, if not two World Cups, to Europe and their countries.

caughtoffside.com shows the world and slogan of FIFA.
The FIFA committee has a big decision to make about the
location of the 2018 World Cup.