Football columnist Jesse Fink loves watching European champions Spain in full flow.

For long periods of the game between Spain and Iraq in Bloemfontein, while waiting for La Roja to put the ball in the back of the net, which seemed an eternity, I was preoccupied with the thought of how Sergio Ramos will feel when he's old and fat with all those weird tattoos of numbers and other talismans that adorn his body. You can get away with a bit of showboating when you're young, good-looking and talented, not so much when you're geriatric, infirm and need a Zimmer frame to get around.

But they're obviously working a charm for Ramos, because he's played over 50 internationals already and just all of 23.

And little wonder. His combination of flair, energy, creativity, speed, positional acumen and peerless skills, as with all his teammates, makes watching Spain a very satisfying exercise in patience: you know that sooner or later they're going to cut through and score. It might have taken 55 minutes, with an exasperated David Villa finally connecting his head to a sublime cross down the left byline from Joan Capdevila, but to a lover of the beautiful game, those 55 minutes were wonderfully instructive. Even with nine men behind the ball, with no thought to getting up the other end, could the Asian champions hold out this rampant Spanish team, which has now stretched its unbeaten run to 34, including 14 straight victories, just one match shy of the all-time record held by Brazil in the early 1990s.

The score might not have flattered the European champions but the bare truth is had Iraq opted to play a more expansive game it undoubtedly would have been a goalfest.

Spain is so good that the only viable strategy left to opposition coaches is to park the proverbial bus in front of goal and hold them at bay for as long as they can. To their immense credit, Iraq's players did a mighty good job of it for Bora Milutinovic but the ploy was always going to come unstuck once Spain scored.

The mark of a great team is one that manages to score even when it's having an off day, and for Spain this was most assuredly one of those.

But it's now into the semi-finals and I can't see them not winning this tournament, which, after a curiously insipid opening day, is finally starting to hit its straps.

Bernard Parker must have read my column from yesterday, calling for Joel Santana to swallow his pride and draft Benni McCarthy and Richard Henyekane to the national cause, because he rejoindered in the best way possible and put away a double against an All Whites rabble in Rustenburg.

Yes, it was New Zealand, so it might as well have been the Bad News Bears, but Bafana Bafana looked a different team with Steven Pienaar reinstated to midfield and will go into their next match, against Spain, with at least some conviction they're not going to be smashed to kingdom come.

Even if they lose, and Iraq thumps New Zealand (a most likely scenario) they can still scrape through to the next stage on goal difference.

Iraq showed the hosts Spain can be contained, so, with goal difference the key (South Africa has two goals, none against, while Iraq has no goals, with one against) there are no prizes for guessing what approach Joel Santana will be taking into the match on 20 June in Bloemfontein.

Bafana Bafana might be not quite the real deal yet, but if there's one thing South Africa has going for it, it's zealousness in defence.

Ramos and the rest of those Spanish pretty boys better buy extra pairs of shinguards. They're going to need them.