Although Spain won, they suffered patches of grey moments where the Ukraine created clear chances of goals, but luckily for the home side they missed. Apart from this Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas had to make some important saves to stop the visitors from equalizing, especially in the 2º half.
Spain continues to have its long standing problem, their lack of GOAL. The Football & midfield performance was outstanding, with such talents as Iniesta, Koke, Isco & Silva in the centre & controlling the ball it had to be. However the scoreline does not correspond to the Football exhibited, there is a serious lack of upfront goal scoring effectiveness. Young Juventus forward Alvaro Morata officially debuted & scored the only goal in the 29th min but he was out of sync & not as dangerous as expected. Ramos hit the post later but little more to "hang up on the wall".
The lack of "killing off" power allowed the Ukraine to revive & believe in themselves that they could draw & they nearly did.
Overall, a win & the 3 points for Spain which was the Nº 1 objective & priority. But the image given still leave doubts in the air & many questions still opened. Perhaps we (myself) are badly accustomed after enjoying 8 years of unbelievable Football that included 2 Euro & 1 World Cup titles, a level perhaps not to be seen again in a long time.
Details:
Score & starting line-ups:
SPAIN - 1: Iker Casillas; Juanfran, Ramos, Piqué, Jordi Alba; Busquets, Koke, Isco, Iniesta, Silva & Morata
UKRAINE - 0: Pyatov; Fedetskiy, Khacheridi, Kucher, Shevhuk; Tymoshchuk, Rotan; Konoplyaka, Stepanenko, Yarmolenko & Zozulya.
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