The Sangai Express / Chris Lehourites(AP)
Johannesburg, June 17 2010:
Spain's potent attack couldn't score a goal at the World Cup on Wednesday, leaving the European champions with a 1-0 loss to Swit- zerland that ended a 12-match winning streak.
Gelson Fernandes gave Switzerland the Group H win after running through the Spanish defense and shoo-ting in a loose ball after a scramble in front of the net that left goalkeeper Iker Ca-sillas chasing from behind.
It was only Spain's sec-ond loss in 50 games.
"Today wasn't our day," Spain coach Vicente del Bo-sque said.
"We have two games ahead of us.
We have to find a way to win them." Earlier, Chile earned its first World Cup win in 48 years by beating Honduras 1-0 in Group H, while ste-wards and community acti- vists in Durban protested against the tournament.
Spain dominated posse-ssion and created attack af- ter attack in Durban, but the stifling Swiss defense man-age to withstand it all and re- cord Switzerland's first win over the Spaniards.
The closest Spain came to scoring was in the 72nd minute when Xabi Alonso's hit the cross bar.
Switzerland was knock-ed out of the last World Cup on penalties by Ukraine in the round of 16 without con-ceding a goal in the tourna- ment.
The Swiss have now gone 490 minutes without conceding a World Cup goal.
Jean Beausejour tapped in the lone goal in Nelspruit in the 34th minute to give Chile a World Cup win for the first time since June 16, 1962, when it hosted the tournament and beat Yugo-slavia 1-0 for third place.
"We're very happy, and we have to enjoy this triumph," Chile forward Alexis San-chez said.
"But we have to move ahead and win the game against our next rival" .
Chile had several chan-ces to double its lead, inclu- ding in the 64th when defen-der Waldo Ponce's close- range header was saved by Honduras goalkeeper Noel Valladares.Honduras, however, found it difficult to break through the well-organized Chilean defense.
"It's a fair result," Hon-duras defender Sergio Mendoza said.
"We didn't have a clear chance at goal.
We knew we could lose this match, but qualifying out of the group is not impos-sible" .
Before the Spain-Switzerland match in Dur- ban, stewards joined com-munity activists in a peace- ful protest of about 800 people outside City Hall to protest the World Cup, which they say has directed public funds away from pro-viding housing and jobs.
Protesters held placards that said "Apartheid Still Exists" and "World Cup for All! People Before Profit" .
Stewards at five of the 10 World Cup venues have been replaced by police be-cause of a wage dispute, and FIFA and the local org-anisers went on the defensive about security issues.