Russian Federation ends Spain’s lukewarm World cup challenge

RFEF chief Rubiales sacked the manager who had led Spain through qualifying after it emerged just days before the tournament started that he would be joining Real Madrid at it’s conclusion.

Former coach Julen Lopetegui, sacked on the eve of the tournament, appeared to have found a way to make Spain’s possession game more threatening and direct, but his interim replacement Fernando Hierro was unable to coax that from his players as they crashed out in Russian Federation. ‘All the problems began with the dismissal of Lopetegui and then continued with a team lacking in form and ideas’.

It didn’t take long before the finger-pointing started, and there were plenty of targets: the newly elected federation president, the inexperienced new coach, the struggling goalkeeper, the aging members of the golden generation.

“I had to persuade them this was the only way (against Spain) as they don’t like this system”, said the coach, whose side also had one shot on target in two hours of football.

“We gave everyone a festival and believed in our success until the end”, he said.

“As the coach I’m the one responsible for what happened”, Hierro said. During the next weeks we’ll make a decision.

“You’re always learning things, now it’s very hard to analyse everything in an hour”. “But life goes on and we need to think of other things now”.

“It’s painful, there’s nothing else we can say”, Spain captain Sergio Ramos said.

The 2010 world champions dominated possession against the hosts and went ahead courtesy of a Sergei Ignashevich own goal in the 12th minute.

The 32-year-old keeper saved Koke’s and Iago Aspas’ spot kicks after both teams had scored two apiece in Russia’s first ever World Cup penalty shootout, to set up a last eight clash with either Croatia, who also edged out Denmark in a penalty shootout later on Sunday.

“Of course, you want to play and you always expect the best”, he said.

Take in the fantastic scenes from Moscow’s fan park after Igor Akinfeev’s decisive save saw Russian Federation pull off an epic upset of Spain.

One fan felt Russia’s number one deserved more than just the man of the match award, posting a mocked up photograph on social media of Akinfeev as a haloed Russian Orthodox saint. “But when you are sure about the way you have done things with responsibility and conviction, the only way is to move forward”.