Luis Enrique admitted he expected more from Spain at Euro 2020 after a 1-1 draw with Poland on Saturday left his team facing a fight to reach the last 16.
Gerard Moreno missed a penalty and Alvaro Morata squandered the rebound as Spain’s scoring woes struck again, with Robert Lewandowski’s header earning Poland a valuable point in Seville.
After starting with a stalemate against Sweden, Spain sit third in Group E and may well now have to beat Slovakia in their final game on Wednesday to avoid an embarrassing early exit.
“I was expecting more,” said Luis Enrique. “I was expecting six points and zero goals conceded. But this is the situation.
“We’re coming into the crunch match now and if we want to progress we need to win. If we win, we’ll go through. If not, we’ll be out. That’s the reality.”
Morata poked in from close range to put Spain in front but Lewandowski’s 60th goal of the season pulled Poland level before Moreno’s penalty hit the post.
The rebound came quickly to Morata but with Wojciech Szczesny committed down to his right, the goal was open for the striker to score his second.
Instead, the whistles that accompanied Morata against Sweden last week were saved for the whole Spanish team at the final whistle.
Poland, meanwhile, formed a huddle on the pitch before going to over to salute their supporters, after the deadly Lewandowski came up trumps again to keep his own team’s hopes of progress alive.
“If it was a boxing match we would have won on points but Poland could have won too,” said Luis Enrique. “They had chances, they caused us problems.”
Luis Enrique had launched a passionate and prepared defence of Morata on Friday as he said the team would be “Morata and 10 others”.
But he also replaced Ferran Torres in the starting line-up with Moreno, the Villarreal striker whose 23 goals was second only to Lionel Messi last season in La Liga.