UEFA Nations League: Spain Frustrated by Serbian Grit

Serbia 0-0 Spain

The 2024 European Champions continued their unbeaten run in Serbia on Thursday night but Luis de la Fuente’s team failed to win for the first time in ten outings.

UEFA Nations League Serbia vs Spain was the pick of the opening night’s fixtures and it certainly delivered in terms of competitiveness; but not in terms of goals as the brave hosts kept out the team which won every single match they played at Euro 2024 in Germany.

In other Nations League action tonight Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski were both on target as Portugal beat Croatia and Poland won in Scotland; and Alexander Isak scored twice as Sweden started with a 3-1 win away to Azerbaijan. In the other Group A4 game of the night, Denmark beat Switzerland 2-0 with two late goals from Patrick Dorgu and Pierre Emile Hojbjerg as Nico Elvedi and Granit Xhaka were both sent off for the Swiss.

Highlights of the game

The Serbia vs Spain betting odds predicted a Roja romp while, at 25^th in the FIFA World Rankings, Serbia are a force to be reckoned with, though with less resource than their opponents of course. And it was the hosts who came out with clear intent; letting La Roja have the ball and then hitting them on the break, with four shots in the opening 15 minutes before Spain had laid a glove on them. Luka Jovic’s pot shot went just high and wide, and that seemed to wake La Roja up and Robin Le Normand headed narrowly wide from a Dani Olmo corner, before Martin Zubimendi forced a save when he was teed up by Lamine Yamal.

The hosts continued to probe for the opener and Jovic shot just wide when he latched onto a through ball from Andrija Zivkovic. But as the first half wore on Spain looked the more likely to score and Olmo and Fabian Ruiz both came close.

Serbia started the second half as they had the first and, after Ivan Ilic was felled by Aymeric Laporte just outside the penalty area he climbed to his feet and fired the free kick inches wide. Spain hit back again with efforts from Dani Carvajal and Ruiz but the Serbia defence held firm, though Le Normand, always a threat from the air was allowed the space to power another effort just over the bar.

Fabian Ruiz had a solid performance during Spain’s match against Serbia in the UEFA Nations League — Fabian Ruiz twice came close to scoring for Spain

Spain head coach Luis de le Fuente threw on Mikel Oyarzabal and Alex Grimaldo to try to shake things up and with Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal still on the pitch the Spaniards had plenty of firepower. Grimaldo had a shot saved in the bottom corner and Yamal fizzed an effort just wide as La Roja came ever closer to breaking the deadlock. Williams met a cross from Carvajal but his header was tipped over the bar and then another substitute, Joselu, headed just over from another excellent cross from Grimaldo in Spain’s last big push.

Key statistics

In our SBOTOP preview of this match we backed La Roja to continue their hot streak of nine consecutive wins but in a low scoring match. We were right on the second count but not on the first!

After a fast start by Serbia the visitors fought their way back into the game and the Serbia vs Spain highlights for the first were pretty much as expected. La Roja had the lion’s share of possession and ended up with nine shots to six and two to one on target.

By the end of the game La Roja had registered 21 shots to Serbia’s eight and five to one on target. Spain won the only previous meeting between the two teams 2-0 and they had enough chances to repeat that score line, but they met a determined Serbian resistance tonight.

What’s next?

On Friday Belgium face Israel and then, in the match of the week, old rivals France and Italy meet at the Parc des Prices. Didiers Dechamps’ Bleus will be looking for a big performance after a disappointing Euro 2024, but the Azzurri will be a tough nut to crack under Luciano Spalletti. On Saturday Germany host Hungary while England begin life in Group B with a trip to near neighbours Ireland and the Netherlands host Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then tonight’s opponents are back in action on Sunday when Spain visit Switzerland and Serbia head to Scandinavia to take on opening day winners Denmark.

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