MADRID, 5 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spain’s men’s football coach, Luis de la Fuente, has described his clash against Serbia in the first round of Group A4 in the Nations League as “a match that we could almost call pre-season”, following the 0-0 draw his players had at the Rajko Mitic Stadium in Belgrade.
“It’s a game that we could almost call a pre-season game. The first game after arriving here, with new players as well, with some players playing more and others less… We’re still in the preparation phase. For us, I insist, it would be almost like a pre-season game. Although, obviously, it was an official game and it was very important,” said De la Fuente in a press conference.
“No, not at all,” he responded to the question of whether this dull 0-0 draw would raise doubts about ‘La Roja’. “I understand that we all demand a lot from ourselves, even more so after having won the European Championship; but this is a process, it is still a very long road and we have to take it step by step,” argued the Spanish coach.
He also analysed the discomfort of the ‘txuri-urdin’ forward Mikel Oyarzabal. “He has a very bad ankle sprain. And well, we will see how it evolves and we will do the tests to see. Let’s hope it only remains a sprain, which is what it seems,” predicted De la Fuente.
The Riojan coach then spoke about his yellow card for having protested a possible penalty on Joselu Mato. “I have to see the images on television now, eh? But on the field it was shown that I was given a penalty and I was only asking for it to be shown in the VAR,” he said in this regard.
“I don’t know if you saw it or if you saw the play in a different way. For me on the pitch it looked like a clear penalty and for Joselu it was too. But oh well, that’s it, it was a play that surely the direction of play and the result would have changed. But oh well, it is what it is, it’s okay,” he resigned himself.
“In the first half we were not accurate, we lacked finesse, we lacked freshness to coordinate, above all, the finishing play. We arrived well to the areas close to the area, but then we lacked quality in the final pass. Something that we did achieve in the second half, but there we perhaps lacked accuracy in finishing,” lamented the ‘Roja’ coach.
“I think we created a lot of chances and created dangerous situations, but we lacked that finesse, that freshness that is still noticeable at this stage of the season. It was very hot, the pitch was a bit dry and slow. But in any case, we have to keep working, we have to keep improving,” he insisted.
“I’m very calm in that sense because the team is giving everything and we have a lot of quality. On Sunday we will be much better, for sure, and little by little the players will get into the rhythm of competition in their clubs, especially, to improve their performance,” he referred to the match against Switzerland during the second matchday.
He later commented on the substitution of Fabián Ruiz. “The reason for the change was simply to give freshness, to bring in another player looking for that last pass like Pedri and nothing more. Normally when you substitute these players that is normal because they always want to play, they want to play everything and I was also seeing that it was a decisive opportunity surely for the outcome of the match,” stressed De la Fuente.
“But Fabian has been very good, I think he has had a very good match and what is happening to him is that he needs to be… well, I insist, he lacks physical condition, a little more energy. And that is acquired by playing matches and as the matches and the season go by,” he reiterated.
“It’s something that happens at this stage of the season with many players. There are some who are participating more, others less. Surely in October we will talk about something else because they will have accumulated three, four, five more games and so on. But in September, well, I always say that a footballer is not yet tired, but has the fatigue that comes from a lack of rhythm, which is harder to recover when one does not have a workload and training and match loads,” repeated De la Fuente in his speech.
“It’s a normal, complicated time, and then we have to value the rival we had in front of us. Defensively they used a lot of energy, they are a very, very withdrawn team, very difficult to open spaces. You only have to look at the history of this team. And the truth is that we lacked that, that finesse that I insist on again and again, nothing more,” he referred to Serbia’s good performance.
“With Ayoze, what we were looking for is what he is giving his club now: depth, play between the lines and finishing. We were not very successful in that first phase, we did not make it easy for him because he only has one shot. It was a good chance, but we did not provide him with the balls so that he could both look for deep situations and finish,” he said before praising Oyarzabal again.
“With Mikel we just wanted to refresh things, Ayoze also had a card and we wanted to refresh the attack a bit and… well, stir things up a bit. Mikel is also a player who understands that depth very well, who also scores goals. It was a bit of a change of players, but surely looking for similar game situations,” concluded De la Fuente.