World Cup: Swiss Make Melted Cheese out of Spain

In a 1-0 loss, it was his peculiarly complacent misjudgment that heaped the pressure of a billion expectations on a team that, for many, was the pre-tournament favorite.

In the face of what seemed like the first Swiss attack of the game, after 51 minutes, Casillas came out to thwart an oncoming forward.

Instead of placing his body squarely in the path of the ball, he decided that he could tackle him like a center-back.

He merely offered his feet as a last line of defense as if he would clip the ball and the crowd would shout "ole."

Instead, he committed a foul. Yet the ball bounced onward.

Gelson Fernandes, the Swiss striker born in the Cape Verde Islands, managed to bundle it into an empty net, while Casillas, mindless of his initial error, tried to tackle with his feet again.

Though Spain had pressed for most of the first half, the Swiss, marshaled by uncompromising German coach, Otmar Hitzfeld, almost gleefully soaked up the pressure.

After the goal, Spain raged forward like a schoolboy maligned.