Spain dominated the entire match controlling the ball with all moments of pure "boredom" as the objective - to score goals - was never clear. Spain only had a hand full of shots at the Russian goal during 130 mins & this is practically "anti Football" with no effectiveness, no goal. This is precisely the problem of Spain during this tournament & past years, the team has difficulties scoring goals. Most of the scored occasions for Spain during their World Cup participation have been rebounds or lucky spill overs with forwards out of the count.
Even today´s only goal for Spain was an own goal by Ignashevich (11th min) after a tussle with defender Sergio Ramos. The Russian equalizer was a penalty scored by Dzyuba (41st min) after defender Pique hand balled.The rest of the summary was all Spain, all Spanish ball domination & null goal opportunities & without goals you cannot win. Below is the technical card summary:
Spain will now fly home tomorrow & rethink the future. Current selector Fernando Hierro will certainly not continue as he too showed signs of inexperience although he was brave to take on the position after the "erroneous" sacking of Julen Lopetegui. Inietsa & Pique leave the Spanish team & veterans like Ramos & Silva are close to calling it a day in coming years. Spain will have to rejuvenate & look forward to the Euro Championships 2020.
So goodbye, Spain will not be missed from the World Cup because they never really played well in all of their 4 matches, with perhaps Portugal being their best moments. But the team started badly, key players not at their best moments, poor decisions by Coach Hierro & the lack of goal or effectiveness upfront to win matches. In the end looked at things rationally Spain was "lucky" to get as far as they did.
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