Euro 2020: Luis Enrique under pressure as toothless Spain draw against Sweden

Spain were toothless in their 0-0 draw with Sweden
Spain were toothless in their 0-0 draw with Sweden

There’s always bound to be expectations when a manager names a squad for a tournament. However, the pressure is much more intense when the said squad selection is controversial.

Luis Enrique backed himself into a tight corner when he named a squad without any Real Madrid player for Spain’s Euro 2020 campaign. However, Spain’s performance in their opening game against Sweden did very little to suggest this was a team ready to take on the continent.

The lack of quality in the squad was evident and Monday’s game was a timely reminder of how Spain have fallen down the pecking order in world football.

Sweden nullifies Spain threat

Despite enjoying the larger share of possession, Spain rarely threatened their opponents during Monday's contest. Sweden had a clear game plan, which was to sit back and play on the counter-attack.

La Roja, therefore, had to make the extra effort to break down Sweden’s deep defensive line. The attacking trio of Alvaro Morata, Ferran Torres and Daniel Olmo, however, failed to come to the party.

Morata, in particular, spurned two very good chances when he was through on goal. In fact, Sweden could have even won had Alexander Isak and Marcus Berg scored the late chances which came their way.

The Spanish teams of previous years had their source of goals from all across the pitch. If the strikers weren’t scoring, their midfielders and defenders chipped in with crucial goals. The current team, though, is bereft of a genuine goalscoring threat and the supporting cast are not clinical enough.

Enrique sweats over La Roja’s lack of cutting edge

The dull, boring performance against Sweden will only increase the pressure on Enrique, who is now burdened with finding a quick fix.

Gerard Moreno, however, remains his trump card. The Villarreal forward did more in 15 minutes, after being introduced in the second half, than the other attackers combined.

"We are going to analyse this game in detail as we always do. But in this case, I think it's really clear, we've all seen what happened this evening so there's really not too much to go into,” Enrique said, as quoted by Sky Sports.
"We were by far the better team. The opposition tried to hang back, we completely controlled the game and tried to create as many chances as possible. We had sufficient chances to win the game. What went wrong? It's the fact we didn't take those chances. It's very clear and we all saw it."

Spain cannot afford to repeat such a wasteful performance in the tournament. With tougher games against Poland and Slovakia yet to come, Enrique could find himself under more pressure if Spain do not get going in their next game.

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Edited by Ritwik Kumar