Match 15 - Sweden v Spain / Dan Fitch / 13 June 2008 / Leave a comment

The British may have widened their culinary tastes but Dan Fitch maintains that we are still an inward looking nation.

Take cinema. You read about a European film that sounds really interesting and trot down to your local multiplex. But because your average British cinema goer is unable to talk incessantly throughout a film and read subtitles at the same time, the multiplex is showing nothing but routine American pap that requires very little of the viewer's attention.

We still eat up what is familiar and turn our noses up at things we've not seen before. This is the only explanation that I can come up with for the fact that Fernando Torres was favourite over David Villa to be Euro 2008 top scorer.

Just one look at their respective goalscoring records for Spain would tell you which player should have been the favourite. But we'll ignore all the 'facts' shall we? Because Torres plays for Liverpool, in the best league in the world and we've seen him score loads of times on Sky.

The markets for major tournaments are full of such inaccuracies, due to Little Englander mentalities, but just a little bit of research can show where the real value lies.

Not that I don't think Torres isn't brilliant and I'm sure he'll score goals in this tournament, but Villa is the real predator in the Spain team and takes the penalties. He took his hat trick superbly and Valencia must be rubbing their hands in glee at how his value will be skyrocketing.

Spain played very well overall and Sweden also got off to winning ways. The Swedes showed that good does sometimes triumph over evil, when Ibrahimovic realised he was never going to get past Greece's 7-3-0 formation and instead just booted it in from 25 yards.

There has been much talk about how this new ball is akin to the type you buy on a seaside holiday, allowing so much movement in flight that it almost has boomerang qualities. That said, there's been few goals from outside the box and free kicks are generally ending up somewhere in the stands. Could it be that the helium filled ball is too light to keep down?

Speaking of balls that resemble balloons, there will be a lot of hot air spoken about Spain after their 4-1 win, but it should be remembered that they started World Cup 2006 with a quartet of goals and gradually declined from there.

However, The Spanish did follow up their 2006 4-0 win over Ukraine, with a 3-1 win over Tunisia and there's every reason to believe that the goals will continue to flow against Sweden. Torres and Villa are full of running and their midfield has the players to pick them out.

The two teams met as recently as November 2007, in the qualification matches. On that day Spain won at home 3-0, whilst Sweden won their home match 2-0. In all, 3 out of the 6 matches played between the two sides have beaten 2.5 goals, averaging at 2.66 goals per game.

In their qualifying group it was Spain that had the tighter defence, conceding 8 goals to Sweden's 9 and keeping a clean sheet in 66.66 of their games, compared to Sweden's 50%.

Sweden kept a clean sheet against the Greeks in the first game, but statistics from the European Championships show that it's increasingly difficult to repeat the feat in the second match. In 2004 only 16.66% of teams with a clean sheet in their first game, managed one in their second. In 2000 it was a slightly better 33.3% and in 1996 a super tight 60%.

Under 2.5 goals is the favourite at [1.61], with overs at [2.6]. With both teams featuring in form strikers, I think that the value has to be with overs. As good as Spain are going forward, they let the opposition play football and Russia carved out some good chances. I'd expect Sweden to be more clinical in their finishing, though Spain will outscore them overall.