
Villa, the newly-signed forward of FC Barcelona, has not scored any penalty in the 2010 World Cup so far, since Xabi Alonso is Spain’s expert penalty-taker. However, Villa tops the goalscoring standings along with Netherlands’ Wesley Sneijder; with all his goals being scored from open play.
Villa did not register himself on the scoring sheet in Spain’s opening match against Switzerland, but he bounced back on the second Day with 2 goals as La Furia Roja won 2-0 controversially over Honduras. On Day 3, Villa proved his worth in front again by scoring another goal, this time, from long distance; and the story in the Round of 16 was not quite different.
In a game where Portugal were looking for nothing but a triumph, Villa enlightened himself again by scoring his side’s winning goal. Replays visibly showed that he was offside at the moment he received the ball, but the assistant referee was not at the perfect position to spot the mistake. Subsequently, Villa became a “hero” once again in that encounter; before killing off Paraguay again in the quarterfinals, when his accurate strike gave Spain a valuable 1-0 win to join Germany in the semifinals.
Villa might not be a master of passes, but at least, he manages to push his team in the opposing half by feeding them with intelligent balls. Although his most difficult style of passes (crosses) only equals 44% of completion rate, he can be satisfied with his accuracy in the most common passing type (short passes), as his completion rate raises to 70%.
Total shots: 26
Shots on goal: 16
Shots on goal from the penalty area: 8
Shots on goal from outside the penalty area: 8
Shots wide: 8
Offsides: 2
Fouls committed: 2
Matches played: 5
Yellow card: 0
Red cards: 0