By Duncan Shaw Jun 15, 2009, 6:24 GMT
Madrid - The Spanish media are delighted with their team's 5-0 thrashing of New Zealand on Sunday, in their impressive Confederations Cup debut.
The handsome win, with an early hat-trick from Fernando Torres, is the front-page splash in every Spanish newspaper on Monday.
Barcelona paper La Vanguardia talks about 'an impressive win, in front of the whole world,' whilst Madrid paper ABC calls Vicente del Bosque's team 'the best national team ever.'
The current numbers of 'La Seleccion' would certainly support this claim. Spain have now gone 33 games without defeat, since 2006, and are three games away from breaking the world unbeaten record of Brazil between 1993 and 1996.
In addition, they have won all 11 of their matches since Del Bosque took over from Euro 2008 hero Luis Aragones 11 months ago.
The taciturn, understated Del Bosque has made an excellent start in the job: practically qualifying Spain for the 2010 World Cup finals, and now setting the Confederations Cup on fire on a flood of goals.
According to Madrid daily El Mundo, 'what is positive about this result (against New Zealand) is not just the scoreline, but that the team was faithful to its traditional style of play ... possession football, with precise passing and fast breaks down the flanks.'
Sports daily Marca points out that Del Bosque's team does not play with conventional wingers, 'so it is important that the full-backs (Sergio Ramos and Joan Capedvila) make good progress down the flanks and put over centres, as they did last night.'
Most Spanish papers on Monday carry the judgement of New Zealand coach Ricki Herbert, who said that 'we have played against the best team in the world.'
Spain are top of FIFA's national team rankings, and are likely to stay there for some time.
The only note of caution is truck by sports daily AS, which comments that 'the initial group will be too easy' and that 'this tournament will not really begin until the second finals.'
Spain's other two Group A matches will be against Iraq on Wednesday and hosts South Africa on Saturday. Then they will, presumably, face either Brazil or Italy in the semi-finals.
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