Spain began their defence of the European Championship title with a narrow 1-0 win over Czech Republic.
The game continued to see Spain’s struggles in front of goal. The national team has been going through a very poor patch of form for the last two years. They have never really recovered from the humiliating exit suffered at the World Cup 2014. Even just before the start of the Euro 2016, Spain were involved in a couple of pretournament friendly games. They suffered yet another humiliation after losing to Georgia, who were ranked below 120 places.
Even though they managed to get the right result and three points at the start of the tournament, Spain certainly did not look convincing. Gerard Pique scored from a header and this was probably the only great opportunity the team had throughout the 90 minutes. Spain struggled to create chances in front of goal while conversion was even more difficult. Even though Vicente del Bosque said that a victory was a good start to the tournament, he admitted that the national team struggled to create enough chances. Spain will have to hit the ground running soon or face the risk of an early elimination from a major tournament to once again. The national team’s next match is against Turkey.
“We took the initiative, but we weren’t successful [in front of goal] until the final moments [of the game].It’s true that we found it difficult to score. It was tough to go ahead, but from an Andres cross, Gerard did wonderfully.We had a little hiccup with the centre-forwards, but in the end we won. I do not know if it’ll be enough, but with these three points, we have a cushion [at the top of Group D]. I’m happy for everyone,” said the Spain manager.