Julen Lopetegui admitted that his Spain Under-21 side missed some good chances against Russia, but that their mentality won through.
La Roja dominated proceedings in their opening Group B fixture of the UEFA Under-21 Championship in Israel, but needed an 82nd minute header from substitute Alvaro Morata for the 1-0 win.
“We had a very difficult match here, Russia played cleverly and made it difficult for us to find space,” Lopetegui reflected to UEFA’s official website afterwards.
“We had four, five chances to score but couldn't get the goal. Russia are a good team, they are strong physically, tactically.
“The most important thing was our mentality, we kept trying to score and express our style and we were delighted to get the goal.
“We maintained our attitude, our concentration until the end knowing what we had to do with and without the ball.”
La Roja face Germany and then the Netherlands in their remaining two fixtures of the group. The Dutch hold the advantage in the group after an entertaining 3-2 win over the Germans yesterday.
“We know we've not done anything yet. We have three points but the difficult bit is to come.
“We're moderately satisfied but tomorrow we'll be moderately worried because we'll be thinking about the next match [against Germany]. We have a spectacular match against a spectacular opponent on Sunday.
“What I'm most pleased about, aside from the result, is the mentality of the lads.
“It is not easy to play these games because your heads can drop when you're on top and you have the ball but you're missing chances and it won't go in – that's when your intensity can drop and when they can get a goal.
“In the first half they had one shot and I thought it was going in.
“We're worried about Sergio Canales [who suffered a suspected hamstring injury]. We'll have to look at his situation.”
