JOHANNESBURG: Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque was in jubilant mood after his team made history by reaching the World Cup semi-finals for the first time.
New Barcelona signing David Villa scored the only goal of the game eight minutes from the end of their quarter-final clash against Paraguay to spark ecstatic scenes from Ellis Park to Madrid.
And the quiet and unassuming Del Bosque then spoke of his joy ahead of Wednesday`s last four duel with Germany in Durban.
"I believe in what we`re doing here and reaching the semi-final represents a great moment for Spanish football," he said.
"We`re amongst the four best teams in the world. It`s fantastic to be playing Germany again, we beat them in the last European Championships (final).
"Germany and Spain are amongst the elite in the world. Three European teams in the last four in this tournament speaks volumes for European football."
Technically it is the first time Spain will play in the semi-finals although back in 1950 they did qualify for the final group stage of four teams, finishing bottom and fourth, but back then there were only 13 teams in the tournament compared with the 32 of today.
But Del Bosque now stands on the brink of becoming a legend in his home country following on from his remarkable success at Real Madrid.
In four seasons from 1999-2003 this low-profile coach won the Champions League and the Spanish league title twice each and managed to mould Real`s `Galacticos` into a cohesive and winning unit.
And apart from one unsuccessful season with Besiktas in Turkey, that was his only senior coaching job before taking over the new European champions two years ago.
But Del Bosque is not the type of person to hog the limelight and praise, preferring to defer to others.
Apart from Spain being the reigning European champions, with Barcelona winning the Champions League in 2009 and Atletico Madrid triumphing in the Europa League last season, Del Bosque described this as a glorious period in the country`s football fortunes.
"It`s an absolutely marvellous time for Spanish football, we`ve seen this not just now but due to a number factors Spanish football is now at the very top and we`re very happy of course," he said.
"We didn`t play a terribly good match but we have the necessary resources to face any opponent, including Germany."
Spain were far from their best against the South Americans, with their usual fluid passing game failing to click, but Del Bosque insisted that was due to their opponents.
"It was a very tough and uncomfortable match but more or less what we expected," he said.
"Paraguay played brilliantly, they`re an excellent side, they didn`t let us play our game.
"We were very uncomfortable on the ball, more than ever so we must praise Paraguay for that, but in the end we managed to win."
After all the talk about the great results by Latin American teams earlier in the tournament, the semi-finals will be made up of three European sides, all of whom beat South American opposition in the quarters, plus Uruguay.
But Del Bosque denied that showed European football to be superior.
"I can talk about Chile and Paraguay because they are the two Latin America teams we played.
"They both played excellent matches and made life very difficult for us and actually got us out of our game and stopped us moving the ball as we normally do.
"There`s no big difference between Latin American and European football."
BDST: 1842hrs, July 4, 2010
