„Footballers sat in silence. We are not on the path we wanted“, - with these words, the coach of the Spanish national team Vicente del Bosque framed one of the biggest surprises of the „Euro 2016“ championship.
The Spanish national team received a blow on Tuesday in the final D group matches, which they will not forget for a very long time. The title-defending Spanish national team had not lost in 15 consecutive matches in the European championships, but „La Roja“ faced a tough Croatia and had to bow down.
Croatia defeated Spain 2:1 after Ivan Perisic's goal in the 87th minute, taking the first place in the group.
This defeat led the Spaniards to face Italy in the quarter-finals, the same team that trounced them 4:0 in the 2012 European Football Championship final.
„We did not like losing. We controlled the game. I do not intend to defend our performance explicitly, but I think we played well. We did not hold the ball as we should have and were not prepared for counterattacks. But we are still in the tournament, although we did not advance on the desired path. Now we just have to recover“, - said V. Del Bosque.
In this game, Sergio Ramos missed a penalty shot. The last time Spain lost in the European championship was in 2004 to Portugal.
„We are in the quarter-finals, although we play against a tougher opponent than we expected. We have to learn from this defeat so it does not happen again—S. Ramos said. - We dominated in the beginning, had chances and were moving forward, but we let them slip through our fingers. We had a great chance when we missed the penalty shot. In one of their fast attacks, we just missed and let one in.“
Croatian coach Ante Cacic was in a completely different mood.
„This team— like our nation. The players showed how to fight and behave. I wanted to play the match with fresh players. This is a great achievement. Now we can trust ourselves much more“, - said A. Cacic.
The confidence mentioned by the coach was immediately demonstrated by the author of the crucial goal, I. Perisic: „We fought until the last minute. That's the spirit of our team. Now we can go far and if we play like we did now, we can reach the end.“
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