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Lopetegui sings praises of 'spectacular' Spain

Julen Lopetegui focused on the number of chances created, rather than the single one converted, as he praised his Spain side for a "spectacular" display in beating Germany.

Lopetegui sings praises of 'spectacular' Spain
Lopetegui sings praises of 'spectacular' Spain ©UEFA.com

Julen Lopetegui, Spain coach
We played a spectacular game against a very good team, a strong Germany a team full of good players. We showed character and personality and we went for the win – we don't know any other way to play. We're delighted with the three points but also the way the game developed, the way we played and our mentality. I am proud of the lads.

A game lasts for 90 minutes and we chose the right moment to send Morata on. Rodrigo did a good job before that and Morata came on with the right attitude. We're delighted with both of them, and I liked the way he celebrated the goal with the rest of this team-mates.

[On Germany's failure to attack] I prefer to look at my team's quality and the fact we were capable of taking the initiative and keeping the ball against a strong team – that is more about our quality than them, that's how I look at it.

[On another 1-0 win] I am very satisfied with the game we played. We played really well and had a lot of chances to score against a good team. We didn't score, but the difficult thing is to create a lot of chances against a team like Germany.

Rainer Adrion, Germany coach
It was a knockout game. We knew this beforehand and were trying to put Spain under pressure. We knew they had a good team – they're very good at keeping hold of the ball and have experienced players – and we had to put a lot into the first half to get the ball and we tired as the second half went on.

Spain always try to find one of their forward players and if they can't do that they play the ball back to the goalkeeper, move the ball around the pitch meaning their opponents have to run a lot to try and get the ball. We tried to force them out wide but it didn't work out as intended – they're a good team and deserved to win. We couldn't get into their box.

This team have a great mentality and spirit, they were always willing but at different stages I think we needed more quality to get through. They've been two close matches against the Netherlands and Spain but in the end we couldn't do it.

Rainer Adrion reflected on defeat
Rainer Adrion reflected on defeat©Sportsfile

There's a lot of quality in our group and even the other group, and I'd hoped we would raise our game in this tournament. We've got good experience out of this tournament but sometimes we were a bit short in attack and short on luck too – if one of the two games had been a draw we'd have played Russia with a chance of qualifying.

[On the difference from qualification failure in 2011] This time we qualified unbeaten and here have lost narrowly to two terrific teams. I'm disappointed as I didn't want to lose here but the team have played well in a tough group.

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