The national coach, Luis Enrique Martínez, appeared at a press conference at the Khalifa Stadium, disappointed with what he had seen on the pitch, despite remembering that "we are classified for the round of 16, which was the goal." "I'm not happy at all," he pointed out, after a match in which the rival was dominated for 80 minutes but against which they had lost. "I have nothing to celebrate, I don't celebrate defeats." Despite this, Luis Enrique wanted to make it clear that he has "full confidence" in his players: "Ten minutes of panic are not going to change what I think."
The coach summed up the match as follows: "In 5 minutes they scored two goals for us and in 10 minutes theycompletely disarmed us." “We have entered collapse mode; and, if they had needed to score two more goals for us, they would have scored them for us”, he reflected. All this, in a dozen minutes, after the break from a very different first half. Luis Enrique assured that, after Morata's goal, it had not been possible to close the game but we had not suffered in defense either.
The start to the second half, however, took a very different turn, as Japan turned the score around and Spain was even, for three minutes, virtually out of the round of 16. For those minutes, the coach was questioned, who stated that he was unaware of this circumstance (Costa Rica beat Germany 2-1 and left out the Spanish and Germans): “I found out now. I would have had a heart attack," he summed up.
Now, having achieved the objective of moving on to the round of 16, "my job as a coach will be to lift the spirits of my players", assured the coach. Players who know they have the confidence of their coach, despite those "ten minutes of panic".