Spain midfielder Isco has admitted that his team need to improve in the knockout round of the 2018 World Cup after squeezing through the group stages with a 2-2 draw against Morocco on Monday night. La Roja needed the intervention of VAR to secure a late point against Morocco, with Iago Aspas’s effort being awarded on review having initially been ruled offside. The 2010 world champions fell behind to a Khalid Boutaib effort in Kaliningrad, and Isco has said that his team ‘cannot keep gifting goals’ if they want to make a challenge for the crown.
“We went out a little hesitant again. This can’t keep happening to us. From now, we must start games as a matter of life or death,” Isco told reporters. We can’t keep gifting goals, we have to be focused. We’re missing what we know best, which is to control the game, have the ball and not play end to end. We have to gear ourselves up and remember that any team we face from this point onwards can send us home. We’re happy for having topped our group, but perhaps the sensations aren’t good.” Spain will take on Group A runners-up Morocco in the last-16 stage of the competition on July 1.