Aragones: We're Ready To Die On The Field

Germany overcame Portugal, Turkey bested Croatia and Russia tonight beat the Netherlands to each book their places in the semi-finals.

In keeping with the above pattern, should the team who has been less impressive so far in the tournament emerge victorious tonight, Luis Aragones' last ever tournament with Spain will end no better than the rest - with yet another quarterfinal exit.

Having swept their group with three wins out of three, Spain are the form side against 2006 World Cup winners Italy who, though admittedly in the Group of Death, had to scrape over the line and did not look their best.

History certainly favours the Azzurri both in head-to-head meetings and success rates in general. Each nation has only won this competition once, with Spain victorious in 1964 (their only international trophy) and Italy, who of course have four World Cups, won the edition after Spain in 1968.

Aragones is geared up and extremely positive ahead of the game. "The team is convinced (they will win), no doubt about that. They'll give it 110 per cent.

"We have to have positive thinking and the team is ready to die on the field if they have to."

He believes his side will learn from the mistakes that saw them crash out in the second round of the World Cup to France. "In that match the team pushed forward too much and we should have changed our tactics.

"We've been working on that and talking about that but against Greece we played their game in the first half until we sat the players down at half time and spoke about it."


Spain B beat Greece
Aragonés Tips Italy And Bemoans Fatigue