POTCHEF­STROOM–Fer­nan­do Tor­res has failed to score in any of Spain's five World Cup match­es, and coach Vi­cente del Bosque is con­sid­er­ing drop­ping the strug­gling strik­er for Wednes­day's semi­fi­nal against Ger­many. Tor­res has rarely looked like scor­ing de­spite start­ing four straight games, in­clud­ing Sat­ur­day's 1-0 quar­ter­fi­nal win over Paraguay. "He re­mains a ref­er­ence for us," Del Bosque said yes­ter­day. "To be on a (score­less) streak or not, he of­fers hard work and per­son­al­i­ty and he'll be our strik­er. Say­ing that doesn't mean he's an un­touch­able starter, but we have full con­fi­dence in him."

The 26-year-old Tor­res ar­rived at the World Cup still re­cov­er­ing from knee surgery in April. He hasn't scored in a com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al since the Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup a year ago. The match at Dur­ban's Moses Mab­hi­da Sta­di­um is the first be­tween the two na­tions since Tor­res scored the win­ning goal in Spain's 1-0 vic­to­ry in the Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship fi­nal two years ago. Del Bosque tin­kered with his for­ma­tion dur­ing the match against Paraguay, with mid­field­er Cesc Fab­re­gas re­plac­ing Tor­res af­ter 56 min­utes and for­ward Pe­dro Ro­driguez lat­er com­ing on.

Fab­re­gas could start against Ger­many as part of a five-man mid­field be­hind David Vil­la. That is how Spain lined up in the Eu­ro 2008 fi­nal, with Tor­res as the lone strik­er. "We want­ed to see how (Paraguay) would re­spond to the sit­u­a­tion but they knew us well," Del Bosque said of the five-man mid­field. "It didn't in­flu­ence their game and there was no sur­prise fac­tor. We went back to our usu­al ways. These al­ter­na­tives de­pend on the ri­val." Vil­la is one play­er who will def­i­nite­ly be in the start­ing line­up as his five goals lead the tour­na­ment. The Barcelona-bound strik­er, who missed the 2008 win over Ger­many, could lead the at­tack alone.