It rained in Spain, but it was only a light drizzle, forming a fine mist over the stadium.

Santander is a working port and apart from the many boats moored in the harbor, there are always fishermen young and old standing on the quayside, rods in hand.

El Sardinero was anything but packed like sardines and barely half the 22,000-seat stadium looked full at kickoff, perhaps confirming the Spanish regions' ambivalence towards their national team.

But then Santander is not your clichéd Spanish city like Seville. The Cantabrian capital looks more like Dublin, and frequently has weather to match.

Decidedly fewer US fans made it to Spain than had turned out at Wembley, but there were still a few flags to be seen and 'USA' chants in the air.

The Freddy Adu media bandwagon ensured the Benfica boy's name was the only US player's to be read out in full, while his first neat dribble was met by approving whoops.

Despite some morons booing the Stars and Stripes, the Santander crowd was generally good-natured and appreciative.

They audibly winced when one of their own, Marcos Senna, scythed Clint Dempsey down in the 57th with the sort of tackle last performed by Sylvester Stallone in 'Victory', turned to waves around the hour mark as an alternative to the fare on the field, and above all, provided music to American ears by loudly whistling off their own players at halftime.

They need not have worried. Spain had little to lose ahead of their Euro 2008 bow against Russia on Tuesday, except some key players through injury - which luckily for them, did not occur.

In Xabi Alonso and Xavi, Spain have a central midfield partnership to die for, one the master orchestrator and the other the willing terrier scurrying around, while Marcos Senna is a more than adequate replacement for either and Cesc Fabregas the sort of attacking midfielder we all wish we could count upon in our team.

In attack, Fernando Torres is as skilful a forward as can be found, but as he showed against the US, even big stars do not shine brightly all the time.

If the Spanish have a weakness, it is surely that Achilles Heel visited upon all great passing teams: over-elaboration, a lack of bite up front and an unwillingness to play percentage balls when they might be the better option.

Let's be honest, Carlos Bocanegra and Oguchi Onyewu are not world class defenders, the former in search of work having been released by his lowly Premier League club and the latter deemed only worthy of a loan to a mid-table English outfit.

Yet both kept Torres and his replacement Daniel Guiza at bay, leaving a rangy midfielder to take it upon himself to dance through and score.

Friendlies are about experimenting, but Bob Bradley started with his favorite eleven, perhaps worried in case another demoralizing defeat was on the cards. He spoke afterwards of the need to experiment, but there was little of that in his team selection.

From the personnel employed, we can surmise that Brad Guzan will stay #2 to Tim Howard for a while and that Heath Pearce seems to have finally cemented his place at left back.

Danny Califf and Jay DeMerit have watched enviously from the sidelines for two games now, wondering what it will take to unseat either Boca or Gooch for even 45 minutes, while Maurice Edu appears to be ahead of Ricardo Clark in the pecking order to challenge Benny Feilhaber for the second central berth.

While Michael Bradley looks more and more the key to the midfield while on the wings, there appear to be no challengers to either DaMarcus Beasley or Dempsey on the flanks, and nor are there any potential rivals to Eddie Johnson as the main striker.

Josh Wolff and Freddy Adu were vying to be Johnson's aide-de-camp with Landon Donovan out, with Adu clearly tagged as the man for the future.

Coach Bradley's reliance on veterans like Frankie Hejduk, Eddie Lewis and Pablo Mastroeni, though, is interesting.

While Lewis proved he clearly still has it in him and Hejduk provided some useful crosses, it also begs the question of where their future replacements are. Come the next World Cup, the three vets employed in Santander will have a combined age of 104.

Looking at the modest US subs bench compared to the long lists of replacements on the English and Spanish team sheets, it brought home to me how much of a squad game soccer is these days.

The American talent pool might be less deep than we thought all of a sudden, which means Bob Bradley still needs to go fishing.