Portugal offered little resistance in Spain’s Group B opener, but Belgium proved a different challenge, twice equalising after going behind.<\/p>\n
But each time the Red Flames responded, Spain replied instantly to restore their lead and regained complete control when Esther Gonzalez netted their third.<\/p>\n
The rest of the game was spent largely in Belgium’s half, with Mariona Caldentey, Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas scoring in the final half an hour to round off a successful evening for Spain in Thun.<\/p>\n
After having 12 shots in a hard-fought first half, Montse Tome’s side stepped up a gear after the break to take their shot tally to 33.<\/p>\n
“They have a bit of everything,” Corsie said. “They have players that are dynamic, they have players that are exceptionally talented individually, one v one.”<\/p>\n
Their second-half performance left Belgium manager Elisabet Gunnarsdottir saying she “wanted to cry” when she entered the dressing room.<\/p>\n
“I really believed in what we were doing and loved seeing my players give everything they had,” Gunnarsdottir said.<\/p>\n
“They [Spain] understand the game on a different level to anything we will see at this tournament.<\/p>\n
“They’re so good about making decisions around the box. If you give them time around the box, or give them space, they use it.”<\/p>\n
With Patri Guijarro dominating play from the base of Spain’s midfield, and Putellas and either Aitana Bonmati or 18-year-old Vicky Lopez in front, Spain are able to camp outside the opposition’s box.<\/p>\n
And if they fail to squeeze the ball through to one of their forward players, they are ready to have a go themselves.<\/p>\n
“Patri underneath that midfield two, she instructed everything – I thought she was excellent,” Corsie said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portugal offered little resistance in Spain’s Group B opener, but Belgium proved a different challenge, twice equalising after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-246279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}