Painful memories spur on Spain against Turkey

MADRID: Spain can avoid the problems that have beset their qualification campaigns for recent major tournaments by beating Turkey twice to all but assure their place at the 2010 World Cup, striker David Villa said.

The European champions needed to playoff against Norway to qualify for Euro 2004 and took a similar route to the 2006 World Cup by beating Slovakia in another playoff.

Their successful Euro 2008 campaign had an inauspicious start back in late 2006 that almost led to the departure of then-coach Luis Aragones.