In their bid to meet Holland in Sunday’s all-European final, the second semi-final saw both team’s build-ups hampered by striker dilemmas; Germany replaced the suspended Thomas Mueller with Piotr Trochowski and Vincent del Bosque opted to bench the out-of-sorts Fernando Torres, starting instead with Pedro, meaning Spain began the match with seven Barcelona men.

Although Germany had been the most impressive of the pair up in their run to the semis, Spain had an organisation about them last night that Joachim Löw’s side were simply unable to break down. Sitting deep, allowing their opponents the lion’s share of possession and hoping to hit on the counter was ultimately somewhat futile, and Germany -despite having two of the three top-scoring midfielders and forwards in the McFifa Fantasy game- failed to live up to the hype; Spain’s excellent ball retention and intelligence were simply a bridge too far. The Nou Camp connection proved to be decisive in the end, as Carlos Puyol’s bullet header from a Xavi corner was enough to clinch the match for Spain and send them through to their first ever World Cup final.

Next up for Germany is Saturday’s third-place play off with Uruguay, and a chance to get back on the goal trail. Having hit four goals in three seperate matches already this tournament, Löw’s men have returned plenty points for their Fantasy managers so far. With the impressive Mueller back to boost their chances, Germany will be strong favourites to finish South Africa 2010 on a winning note, and there will, no doubt, be much investment in their players before the weekend kick-offs.

Bear in mind the Miroslav Klose factor, too; he is just a single goal behind Ronaldo’s all-time World Cup goals record and, with 4 goals, has just one less than David Villa and Wesley Sneijder in the race for the Golden Boot. In all probability, this will be the Bayern Munich man’s last major tournament and there is every chance Saturday will present him with a chance to make goalscoring history.

Del Bosque certainly has some thinking to do before Sunday’s final in terms of his starting XI; Pedro’s performance (he picked up 6 attacking points, easily the most by any Spanish player) was infinitely better than anything shown by Torres up till now (he has 1 attacking point all tournament) but playing Pedro means starting David Villa up front through the middle. Villa is clearly more suited to his wide left starting berth and failed to threaten the German goal last night; too many times they played balls into the opposition penalty box only for the diminutive striker to be easily taken care of by the German central defence. Villa needs the ball at his feet and space to run into, which he only gets out wide. Last night was the first game he failed to find the net since Spain’s opener against the Swiss; which was also, coincidentally, the last time he started up front through the middle.

Spain have now recorded clean sheets in all three of their knock-out games, chalking up four in total, and they are becoming increasingly harder to penetrate the longer the tournament progresses. Holland, on the other hand, have now conceded in each of their last four games, though they have won every match on the way to the final. Both approach the final with impressive records but, come Sunday evening, something must give.

Having seen off Germany, Spain will be marked as favourites though, and as they bid to become only the third team to simultaneously hold both European and World titles, that first game defeat at the hands of Switzerland now must seem a long, long way away.