Spain vs. China: Large Margin of Victory Crucial for Spain Going into Euro 2012

Carlos Puyol won't be playing for Spain in the 2012 European Championship. Neither will David Villa. La Roja will be missing one of its best defenders, as well as the team leader in goals scored, meaning that they need to prove to themselves today that they can score at will against the inferior China club.

Despite missing some of its best players, Spain is the consensus pick to win the European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. But if they want to be comfortable with its play and confident in their chances to top the other nations in the field, they'll need a large margin of victory in their match that begins at 4:00 p.m. ET.

They don't need just a 2-0 victory in which they are clearly superior in regards to possession, passing, chances and defensive prowess. They need something along the lines of a 5-0 win against a Chinese team that is light years behind Vicente del Bosque's club.

While it may not seem important that Spain wins in convincing fashion, it needs to ensure it can remain a powerhouse against the other European juggernauts without two of its most important players. For most teams, it would be a crushing blow to lose two players of that caliber, but for Spain it just means that it has to find a different way to get both aspects of its game firing on all cylinders.

There's no better time to do that than against Jose Camacho's club, which hasn't played since February 29. In the last three matches Spain has played, it has outscored opponents by a combined score of 11-1. That means that they should blow out China, and if they don't, they might not be so confident heading into the first match of the European Championship against Italy on June 10.

If Spain comes into this match and has a hard time beating China by a couple of goals, the players will feel like they aren't performing as fluently heading into their match against Italy, the No. 12 team in the FIFA World Rankings. Surely Italy will be watching this tilt, and if they see the Spaniards falter just a bit, they'll be even more confident of victory next Sunday.

Spain is definitively the best team in the world, and the best team in the world is supposed to blow out a team like China, the No. 66 ranked team. If they don't, though, they will give Italy a semblance of confidence heading into the European Championship. Not only that, but there could be some doubt in the Spanish locker room for the next week.