Arguably the best individual performance of the tournament so far goes to the Chilean winger Alexis Sanchez in their opening match against Honduras. Fleet of foot and showing real attacking urgency whenever he had the ball, his performance was a breath of fresh air in what has been a rather sterile opening round of matches.He made his debut for Chile in 2006 at the age of 17. Now, still only 21, he has been in Serie A at Udinese for two seasons where his performances have attracted the generally unwanted attention of Real Madrid. While predominantly collecting the ball in deep or wide areas, he is at his most dangerous when turning and running at defences but he also demonstrated an eye for a killer ball through to his strike partners and chips in with a fair amount of goals (he scored three in two World Cup warm ups).
Granted, Honduras are not the greatest side against which to judge a player’s calibre, so it will be interesting to see whether he manages to do any damage to a dogged Swiss defence or sees enough of the ball to worry a Spanish backline that did not cover itself in glory against Switzerland.
He is the catalyst of an attractive Chilean side that I, for one, hope make it through to the last sixteen. You may see him in the Champions League next season.
Matt Morrison
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