Spanish fury at Scotland’s diving, time-wasting and long grass

Rodri, the Manchester City midfielder, says Scotland played “rubbish” football after Spain’s shock 2-0 defeat at Hampden Park.

Scott McTominay scored twice in one of Scotland’s greatest ever victories on Tuesday night. Steve Clarke’s team are now top of Group A in the European Championship qualifiers.

Rodri, however, was scathing about Scotland’s performance and accused them of time-wasting.

“It’s the way they play, but for me it’s rubbish, always wasting time, provoking you, always they fall,” he said. “For me, this is not football. The referee has to take on this, but he says nothing.

“We did many good things to win. We conceded easy goals – this is football, if you concede easy goals you are penalised.

“We will learn for the next time. We want to go for duels, for battles – we always fight, but this is not about fighting. It’s about wasting time – four, five players on the floor, but this depends on the referee, not on us. Today we did many good things, but what’s important is the goal, and we didn’t score.”

Spain’s frustrations did not stop there, with debutant Osasuna defender Daniel Garcia blaming the length of the Hampden Park grass as a factor in their poor performance.

“We already saw that the grass was too long, and that cost us,” Garcia told Marca. “We can’t make excuses for that, we have to look at ourselves and fix what we did wrong today.”

Rodri’s complaints drew a strong response from former Scotland striker Ally McCoist, who questioned whether the Manchester City midfielder could cope with the physical demands of the game.

“I thought we were just a wee bit too physical for Rodri! We were rubbish, is that the word he used? Bless his wee Spanish heart,” McCoist told Talksport.

“He’s a good player but he can cope with the physical side of the game no bother so the irony of him talking about the physicality of Scotland is not lost on me.

“Man alive, Hampden was jumping. That was nothing short of fantastic. It really was. And do you know something? I can say it now, I would’ve said it earlier, but we weren’t really in any danger. They’re putting crosses into the box and the lads were absolutely tremendous, whether it was Hanley, Porteous, Cooper. Kieran Tierney was superb, Aaron Hickey, McTominay with two goals. Have I named them all yet?”

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Steve Clarke, the Scotland manager, also preferred to praise his players, rather than engaging with Spanish criticism.

“Delighted with the performance,” he said. “I thought the players were outstanding from first minute to last.

“The dynamic, enthuasiasm and quality of the team didn’t change. It’s a big night, it feels like a step forward, but it’s only six points and you don’t qualify with six points.

“We didn’t have an awful lot of possession, but what we did have, we used very, very well. The defensive shape’s good, the distance between the units was really good, which stops a large part of Spain’s game. All the credit goes to the players on the pitch – they’re the guys that have to do the hard yards.

“When you look at the stats, you know you’ve been out-passed, but when you look at the shots on goal, shots on target – it’s almost equal. It means we utilised the ball very well when we had it, which is obviously pleasing.

“I’ll have a couple of quiet days to calm down, and then we start preparing for two big games, because June could be a pivotal month for us.”

How the Spanish newspapers reacted

Luis de la Fuente’s honeymoon period as Spain manager can be considered over following the shock defeat in only his second match in charge since replacing Luis Enrique.

Marca

Madrid-based newspaper Marca asked “What’s the plan?” on their front page on Wednesday, and labelled the head coach’s selection “a vulgar and inconsistent team who paid for their mistakes with a painful defeat”.

Mundo Deportivo

Questions over De La Fuente’s suitability for the job have already arisen, with Mundo Deportivo describing the defeat as “Sore” in a short but simple front page headline. “La Roja fall in Glasgow with a double from McTominay in a first KO of the De La Fuente era that sows doubts,” the Barcelona-based daily adds.

Sport

Barcelona newspaper Sport blamed the absence of any players from Xavi’s side in the starting line-up, with only Gavi among the substitutes from the Catalan club.

Under the headline “Shipwreck”, Sport added: “La Roja, without any Barcelona players in the starting line-up, falls against Scotland with a poor showing – De le Fuente made eight changes and the team broke up in defence and only Joselu created danger in attack.”

AS

In a similar fashion, AS published “Shipwreck in Glasgow” on their front page, and said that while Spain’s first-half performance was “acceptable”, their display after the break was “horrible”. The paper blamed De La Fuente’s eight changes from last week’s 3-0 win over Norway as the cause of the loss.