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Del Bosque satisfied with Italy draw

Vicente del Bosque said his Spain side had chances to win a "quite balanced" opening game against Italy but, like Cesare Prandelli, sounded satisfied with the 1-1 draw.

Del Bosque satisfied with Italy draw
Del Bosque satisfied with Italy draw ©UEFA.com

Having witnessed their respective sides put in immense performances in a captivating Group C opening encounter at the Arena Gdansk, Italy coach Cesare Prandelli and his Spain counterpart Vicente del Bosque each declared himself satisfied with a point.

Vicente del Bosque, Spain coach
Of course we wanted to win here but I am not leaving feeling frustrated as I thought we put in a good performance; we will leave happy knowing that. We finished the game full of eagerness, determination and with chances to win. I thought the second half was in our favour. We know how this type of game is, though, and this one was quite balanced. We were solid in possession against a team who looked to press us and who started the game determined to stand up to us. Italy had some good chances, that's true, but we were on top of our game. We have achieved a point while putting on a good display.

Cesc Fàbregas is a player who is great at arriving in the area and we tried to use him from the start in a way we thought best for this occasion. Fernando Torres came on later and had chances to score which he didn't take but I am happy with a draw.

Cesare Prandelli, Italy coach
It was a very intense game. We really tried hard to press the Spanish players from the moment they started their moves. We tried to avoid them getting one-on-one situations while when we had the ball we looked to build from the back. Yesterday I didn't know what we would be coming up against in this game but I was smiling because this is a fantastic sport which I think we sometimes need to approach with less tension.

I brought Antonio Di Natale on for Mario Balotelli not because Mario missed a chance but because I felt we needed more depth in our attacks. What disappointed me about this evening was that we allowed them to equalise so quickly. We were playing the world champions but we should have made it more difficult for them after we scored. We need to improve on certain things. We were a little surprised with Spain's lineup but we agreed that we needed to focus on our own game. We will analyse this game and work on some things. We expended a lot of energy which we will need to recover for our next match.

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