GROUP B: Spanish fans looking to Costa, Silva rather than veterans Villa and Torres

Duncan Shaw, dpa

Gratitude for past achievements has rarely been strong in Spanish football and this attitude was confirmed Wednesday by online polls published in Madrid sports dailies AS and Marca.

The polls show readers overwhelmingly prefer Diego Costa and David Silva in attack Friday against the Netherlands instead of veterans Fernando Torres and David Villa.

Torres and Villa have been the leaders of the Spanish attack since 2004, and their goals have helped La Roja to the most glorious phase in the country's football history.

Torres, 30, has scored 37 times for Spain in 107 games - including the 2008 and 2012 Euro finals - while Villa, 32, is La Roja's historic top scorer with 58 goals in 96 matches.

Their impressive statistics and lengthy experience should make them firm favourites of the fans, but the opinion polls show otherwise.

One reason is that Torres and Villa have been struggling to find their form and fitness in recent years. Torres has struggled to hold down a regular place at Chelsea while Villa has not been the same player since breaking his right leg in 2011.

He scored only 13 goals in 36 games for Atletico Madrid last season and is now planning to wind down his career in Australia with Melbourne City.

Silva, 28, has always been popular with the Spanish fans and was important in the 2008 and 2012 triumphs, though he hardly featured at the 2010 World Cup.

What Wednesday's polls made crystal clear was that the fans are keen to see Diego Costa leading the red attack, after all the publicity about him preferring Spain to his native Brazil.

Spain manager Vicente del Bosque's lack of confidence in his usual strikers was confirmed last October when he went out of his way to persuade Costa, 25, to opt for La Roja.

Costa almost missed out on the World Cup by aggravating a hamstring injury by insisting on starting in the Champions League final against neighbours Real - then limping off after just nine minutes.

Del Bosque raised eyebrows by preferring Costa to Fernando Llorente and Alvaro Negredo in his final squad, despite the Brazil-born forward's injury.

Costa's first two appearances in red have been disappointing, but Wednesday's polls show the fans still have higher hopes for him than for Torres or Villa - despite the latter scoring both goals in last Saturday's 2-0 defeat of El Salvador.

What the AS poll also shows is that the fans want Spain to play with a proper number nine, instead of with Cesc Fabregas as a 'false striker', such as occurred at Euro 2012.

In the poll taken by Marca - which is Spain's top selling paper - the readers had to pick the entire team for Friday's debut, not just the forward line.

The readers prefer Cesar Azplicueta at right-back to Atletico's Juanfran, and want to continue with the defence of Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba that did so well at Euro 2012, conceding just one goal in seven games.

The Marca readers also want to continue with the defensive midfield partnership of Sergio Busquets and Xabi Alonso, though Del Bosque has often been slated for playing with two anchormen instead of just one.

Veteran playmaker Xavi is retained in front of the two anchormen, with Barca teammate Andres Iniesta placed out on the right in order to give Silva space down the left.

Meanwhile, around 15 million Spaniards are expected to follow Friday's rerun of the 2010 final, with giant screen street parties planned in Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia - though not, significantly, in Barcelona and Bilbao.

Barcelona and Bilbao - the historic centres of Catalan and Basque nationalism - were the only two major Spanish cities which were not taken over by euphoric "red fever" in 2008, 2010 and 2012, and are expected to remain fairly quiet during this World Cup.