Injured Lamine Yamal saw out for Spain as they drew 1-1 with Iraq in the first of their two World Cup warm-up games.
Yamal, who is in a race against time to be fit for Spain’s World Cup opener against Cape Verde on June 15, watched on as the Euro 2024 winners were held in A Coruna, with Nico Williams also watching on as they struggled to inspire before jetting off to North America.
Ferran Torres opened the scoring after 15 minutes but a stunning strike from Merchas Doski before half-time brought the underdogs level, with La Roja unable to create many chances of note in the second half to win the game.
Torres scores, Doski screamer levels game
Spain dominated possession in the opening stages with Alex Baena forcing the Iran goalkeeper into an early save, with the Atletico Madrid attacker poking wide shortly after.
The European champions made the breakthrough in the 15th minute when captain on the night Ferran Torres weaved his way through two defenders before squeezing the ball under the keeper.
But La Roja were stunned when Iraq levelled with an exceptional strike from Doski, who spotted Joan Garcia off his line from the left-hand side before an effort which flew past the Barcelona goalkeeper.
A whipped strike on the edge of the box Torres after a slick move involving Gavi forced a brilliant save from Ahmed Basil to keep the scores level at half-time.
Spain fail to inspire
Eric Garcia, Gonzalo Garcia, Yeremy Pino and Jesus Rodriguez were all introduced at the break but it failed to inspire an improvement in Spain’s game, who struggled to create anything of note since Iraq’s equaliser.
Luis de la Fuente would certainly have liked to call on Yamal and Williams as chances were severely lacking approaching the last 15 minutes, even if they were totally dominant in possession.
While Spain were poor, Iraq deserve heaps of credit for how they dealt with the former world champions so comfortably, with crosses headed away from danger time and time again.
The final stats read 14 Spain efforts compared to just two for Iraq, but in truth the hosts never looked in real danger of threatening in the second half, which may concern some of a Spanish persuation – even if the main aim for this game was for fitness.
