Group H: If the English like to talk of "40 years of World Cup suffering", well the Spanish go on about "50 years" of the same thing. After that sparkling 4-0 rout of Ukraine, however, expectations are at an all-time high with Spaniards wondering if, finally, the national team can deliver.
In order to confirm those expectations, Spain will be expected to make short work of a disappointing Tunisia, who claimed a 2-2 draw with Saudi Arabia, thanks only to a late equaliser from Radhi Jaidi. The two sides have never met competitively.
Not surprisingly, canny Spain coach Luis Aragones is unlikely to change his team, again leaving out ageing icon Raul in favour of the impressive three-man attack of Luis Garcia, Fernando Torres and David Villa. Raul was a second-half substitute in the opening match.
Intriguingly, Aragones believes there is still considerable room for improvement in his side.
That may well be but, Spain's biggest problem this evening may be over-confidence, a point not lost on Liverpool's Garcia, who said yesterday: "We have some really good players in the team right now and we had one good result but we still need to play hard and focus on Tunisia because we've won nothing yet. We need to be careful not to get carried away with what happened in the first game"
Tunisia's experienced French coach Roger Lemerre, 65 on the eve of the match, is convinced his side can do better than against Saudi Arabia but their chances have not been helped by the injury problems of naturalised Brazilian striker Dos Santos, who missed the Saudi clash and remains doubtful for today.
Lemerre has yet to win a match at the World Cup. In 2002, he was in charge of the French team that lost to Senegal and Denmark and drew with Uruguay.
Probable line-ups
Spain (4-3-3)
Casillas; Ramos, Puyol, Ibanez, Pernia: Senna, Alonso, Xavi; Garcia, Torres, Villa
Coach: Luis Aragones
Tunisia (4-4-2)
Boumnijel; Trabelsi, Jaidi, Hagui, Jemmali; Namouchi, Mnari, Chedli, Bouazizi; Jaziri, Chikhaoui
Coach: Roger Lemerre
Referee: C Simon (Brazil)
Kick-off: 8.0pm
Venue: Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion, Stuttgart
On TV: RTÉ 2 and BBC 1
