Can Trap’s simplistic style stymie Spain?

David Silva killed the ball exquisitely, looked up, saw his man and found him with a pass.

Nothing new about that, you might say – except for the fact that this was midway through Spain’s first half against Italy on Sunday and Silva was about 10 yards from goal. With the Manchester City playmaker on the right side of his marker, all he had to do was swerve his body inside and shoot. It was a gift.

Instead, Silva offered one up to Italy. He played the way he was facing and just passed the ball back out of the box.

It was a moment that seemed to finally confirm so many comedy lines and clichés about this Spanish team: that they prefer possession to actual penetration; that they want to win on artistic points rather than goals; that they want to pass the ball into the net. Certainly, it suited the three-man Italian defence for Spain to work the ball into the box only to work it back out again.

Beyond the perceptions, though, this does raise a more pertinent question about the Spanish: are they genuinely starting to needlessly overcomplicate things?

The very fact that Silva had the ball in that position, as one of three alternating attacking midfielders used instead of an out-and-out forward, would appear the ultimate proof. Contrast the general congestion around the Italian box in the first half, too, with the wealth of chances they created (and missed) on bringing on Fernando Torres in second.

There is something of a misconception here as well, though. For one, it could be argued that Torres only got such space late on because the game had inevitably opened up and Spain’s midfield six had done their job of tiring the Italians. In the same kind of way but on a different level, note how lively Giovanni Trapattoni’s general attacking substitutions of Shane Long and Simon Cox can look once Kevin Doyle and, to a lesser extent, Robbie Keane have done much of the donkey work.

Secondly, there is the very evolution of this Spanish team and that of football tactics in general.

Cast your mind back to the first round of Euro 2008 — a week that feels further away in terms of circumstances rather than time. At that point, Spain had a really promising-looking squad. But, then, they often had. The even older clichés still swirled around the squad: that they would flatter to deceive; that they were intricate but not emphatic.

What’s more, the evidence from the 2006 World Cup still seemed to stand. In Germany, they were also filled with fine footballers and even got off to a fantastic start by hammering Ukraine... but still fell at the first real test, against France.

As such, it was not unreasonable that Guus Hiddink got his own rousing Russian side to go at Spain in their opening Euro 2008 game.

The first problem for Russia, though, was that 2006 was only a starting point for a new Spanish team. The second was that Hiddink’s side left far too much space in behind them, allowing a now mature Spain to revel.

With a relatively simply arranged attacking six of Marcos Senna holding, Xavi conducting, Andres Iniesta and Silva creating, Torres running and David Villa finishing, the Spanish excelled.

Surprisingly, thinking the game was something of an aberration (Hiddink described Spain as one of the most defensive teams he had ever seen), the Russian manager tried the same approach when the two sides met again in the semi-finals. The result was almost identical: a three-goal win for the eventual champions. Over two games, Spain had bested Russia 7-1.

Therein lay a lesson: leave space in behind and the Spanish will eviscerate you. That continued to be case for the next two years as Spain perpetuated that record unbeaten run and won every single one of their 2010 World Cup qualifiers.

Then, Jose Mourinho figured something out. In order to beat Spain’s Barcelona core with Inter, he had to deny them, not the ball since that was impossible, but the most important space of all: around the 18-yard box.

It set a template and a trend. Almost every team at the 2010 World Cup realised that was the only way to win against the Spanish, creating the conditions for that succession of minimalist 1-0 wins.

And, far from a mark against them, that perhaps is the ultimate evidence of Spain’s quality. Like no other side in history, they have forced extreme responses in the tactics of virtually every team they have played.

Consequently, that is the root of Spain’s continued over-complication of their play. How different, after all, does their attacking shape now look to 2008?

But that is also the nature of football tactics. Once a defensive team discovers a solution to one problem, it is up to the attacking team to provide another.

That is also the context of last Sunday’s match with Italy. Cesare Prandelli already went against the general conventions of international football by playing three at the back. So Vicente Del Bosque adapted and adjusted by trying to give him a different problem.

It is possible, of course, that may represent something of an ‘end of history’ for this Spanish team. How many more such alterations can they make?

The most pertinent question of all, though, is what this means for Ireland?

As we know, Trapattoni’s side always practise the defend-deep style that so frustrates Spain anyway. But it’s also not like Ireland give any extra problems. In terms of tactical sophistication, Trapattoni’s side are probably the most simplistic team in the tournament.

It’s going to be interesting to see what way Silva and Spain look when it comes to that.