Iniesta rejects criticism

Andres Iniesta has strongly defended Spain’s progress through the group stages of the European Championship and believes the standards now demanded of the world champions make it almost impossible to please some in his homeland.

Spain play France in the quarter-finals after finishing top of Group C with seven points from their three games and having also managed to score the most goals in the first phase of the competition and concede the least.

However, for the majority of Monday’s 1-0 win over Croatia one goal for the Croats would have been enough to eliminate Vicente del Bosque’s men and that performance drew widespread criticism from the Spanish press for its ponderous nature.

Iniesta refutes those claims and he told El Pais: “I would like a little more balance in the evaluation.

“We haven’t won all the games 5-0 but what were they expecting? We were highly competitive and in the three games we were better and deserved to win.

“It gives more value to our ability to overcome difficult moments in the matches.

“We always go out to attack and the opponent only looks to defend.

“Starting from there I would swear we have won the confidence of many people and the respect of the opponents but not of all Spaniards it would appear.”

The Barcelona midfielder has been particularly baffled by the criticism aimed at Del Bosque given his achievements with the world and European champions and believes there were specific circumstances in the Croatia game that resulted in a somewhat disjointed display.

“The criticism of Del Bosque hurts because it is unjust. He defends a style that has made us champions and this isn’t censurable.

“He can pick this player or that player but the idea of the game is always the same.

“We can’t play another way because we don’t know how. With this style we won the European Championship and the World Cup. I don’t know how so many doubts over the team can come now.

“The Croatia game was difficult to play because you had to be aware of the score.

“We couldn’t go crazy for the win and let in a stupid goal. We knew they would push in the second half and it could be that in this phase of the game we lacked fluidity to achieve the penetration we needed but we didn’t play badly.

“Sincerely, I am proud of our group stage because we knew we would struggle at times. It doesn’t worry me that we could lose, what would worry me is to go into the game without the feeling of trying to win it and that is not going to happen in this team.”