By Brendon Hanley Jun 17, 2009, 18:00 GMT
Bloemfontein, South Africa - The Spanish national team beat Iraq 1-0 in Group A of the Confederations Cup Wednesday to notch their 14th victory on the trot, joining Brazil, France and Australia teams as record-holders of the longest consecutive streak of international victories.
They also moved to within one of equalling Brazil's record for most matches unbeaten in a row. Spain have now gone 34 games without defeat, a streak that started with a 1-0 victory over England in February 2007. Their last loss was to Romania in November of the previous year.
Spain's run of outright victories began with their 3-0 win in the semi-finals of the 2008 European Championship last summer that qualified them for the Confederations Cup. It was their first major title in 44 years.
Their last non-victory ended in fact with them victorious, having defeated rivals Italy on penalty kicks after a scoreless draw in the quarter-finals of Euro 2008.
That win over the reigning world champions was an important one for the perennial underachievers.
'Beating Italy at the European Championships was an important day for us,' said Carles Puyol, who was rested against the Asian champions. 'We believed at that point that we could go all the way. It gave us confidence, and we have not lost that momentum.'
The world's current number one team will be looking to surpass Australia, who won 14 in a row in 1996-1997, Brazil, who did the same in 1997 and France, who did it in 2003-2004, when they take on host nation South Africa on Saturday.
Santi Cazorla, who started on the right wing against the Iraqis before being substituted in the 67th minute, insisted that La Furia Roja were not too concerned with the numbers.
'It's not the job of the national team to think about records, or anything else but the next game,' he said. 'We just want to win as many games as we can.'
Iraqi coach Bora Milutinovic had some words of warning for the Spanish, however.
'If you remember, Spain also had a 31-match unbeaten streak before the 1998 World Cup,' he said. 'And then they lost once to Nigeria 3-2 in the group stage and did not go through.'
Though he was full of nothing but praise for the 'golden generation' of Spanish players, the Serb boss was realistic, saying: 'They will eventually lose again of course, it just depends on how important the match is, whether it is a friendly or a decisive World Cup contest. And that's about luck.'
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