Spain winning, but the struggles continue
BARCELONA: A disappointing 1-0 win over Tunisia has left Spain concerned as they go into their opening World Cup game with Portugal on Friday.
“Too friendly” was the headline of one match report describing Spain’s final warm up match, which prompted fears of disappointment at the Russia World Cup.
The win kept coach Julen Lopetegui’s unbeaten run intact but convinced nobody.
“A good goal but a bad day” was how Diario AS headlined its front page yesterday.
“And now it’s time to get serious,” Marca’s headline read.
The consensus seemed to be that a similar performance in Sochi on Friday could leave Spain struggling against the European Champions.
“The game was very difficult,” Lopetegui said. “We gave the ball away a lot and and that made life easy for our rivals.”
He seemed unperturbed, however, by Spain’s inability to win comfortably.
Spain scored the only goal of the game: With six minutes remaining, substitute Iago Aspas fired home after good work from Diego Costa.
Neither Costa nor Aspas started the match, but both made a difference as second half substitutes and are now in contention for a starting berth in the opening group game.
Others to disappoint included Real Madrid midfielder Isco and Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcantara. Both were taken off at halftime, as was inexperienced right-back Alvaro Odriozola who struggled to contain Tunisia attacks in the first 45 minutes.
“There will be many games like this in the World Cup with very close scorelines,” Lopetegui said. “We at least took the game to them in the second half. We were competitive and we overcame our difficulties.”
Goal scorer Aspas, however, sounded the alarm after the game: “We had a better feeling about things before the squad meet-up.”
This seemed to underline a sense that Spain’s last two friendly performances have only served to lower expectations in Russia. But not everyone was feeling gloomy after the narrow victory. Real Madrid defender Nacho was impressive as a second half substitute and he was upbeat after the game. He now looks set to to start the first match against Portugal – if, as expected, Dani Carvajal does not make it to full fitness in time.
“We are positive about things even though we have not played at our best in the last two games,” Nacho said. “We just want the tournament to get started. We are confident that things will go well.”