TWO penalties, seven yellow cards. This was a friendly with a bit of a grimace on its face at times, and for a capacity audience at the home of Atletico Madrid, it was all the more enjoyable for its hard edge. Diego Maradona’s Argentina finished second best to the champions of Europe, but made a game of it by making good on their best spell of football early in the second half, after Xabi Alonso had given Spain the lead. The same player won the match by converting a late penalty.

From the off, it was a World Cup warm-up with attitude. Within 20 seconds, Sergio Ramos, the Spain full-back, piled into Gabriel Heinze, until recently his Real Madrid colleague. Heinze then had a contretemps with David Villa that required the intervention of others to restore the peace.

Yet this was a fixture Argentina could approach with a sense of relief. Since Maradona was, to global surprise, asked to rescue a rickety qualifying campaign as head coach of his country, Argentina flirted with the unthinkable, that they might not be in South Africa next summer. His record going into last night read four wins and four defeats. His team finished fourth in the South American zone, qualifying by the skin of their teeth.

The XI chosen yesterday looked baffled at times in the early part of the contest, but Spain’s midfield can fox the best opponents, when Xavi is pulling their strings and Andres Iniesta and David Silva are making their dainty runs to either side of him.

Fernando Gago upended Iniesta, Heinze picked up one of the first half’s four yellow cards for impeding Silva, Newcastle’s Fabricio Coloccini having his name taken for scything down Iniesta. Spain had all the possession and might have capitalised further by the interval than by the margin of Alonso’s goal, converted from close-range after Sergio Romero had parried Silva’s shot. Coloccini cleared a Villa effort off the goalline and Villa speared an angled shot straight across the goalmouth.

Argentina’s best efforts had emerged on the counter-attack, Angel di Maria exploiting the space vacated by the enthusiasm of Ramos to surge forward to chip the ball over the goal.

For the second period, Argentina emerged more purposeful. The Maradona effect? He introduced Carlos Tevez shortly after the break and the Manchester City player harried away at the Spain defence, whose Raul Albiol then conceded a penalty, fouling Gonzalo Higuain. Lionel Messi converted for 1-1.

But the last word belonged to the European champions. Martin Demichelis’ handball gave Spain a late spot-kick and Alonso struck it high into the goal.