Sergio Busquets was visibly emotional after Spain’s emphatic 5-0 win over Slovakia on Wednesday. Spain had drawn their first two matches and faced a lot of criticism from fans, pundits and former players prior to their final group game.

Busquets, who was suffering from COVID 19 earlier this month, had missed the first two matches but came in against Slovakia and captained his side to a lovely victory which will do a world of good to their confidence going ahead.

An error by Slovakian goalkeeper Martin Dubravka led to the first goal. Aymeric Laporte doubled Spain’s lead just before half time and in the second half, the flood gates were open. Goals by Pablo Sarabia, who had a fantastic match, and Manchester City midfielder Ferran Torres made the score 4-0. Juraj Kucka followed Dubravka by scoring another own goal which was the final nail in the coffin as the score line read “5-0”.

With so many goals being score, one would think that either Pablo Sarabia or maybe even Aymeric Laporte would be given the star of the match award considering their contributions. But the award was given to Sergio Busquets, who bossed the midfield.

“I’m emotional. I had a bad time, a lot of days at home,” he said, “I didn’t know if I could come back or not. But the group is strong… All this has made us grow.
“It wasn’t easy because you’re waiting for a negative PCR test. I’ve had teammates who’ve had one after 20-plus days. I wanted to play in this Euros, it will be the last one for me, for sure.

“This is the way we want to continue performing. It’s going to bring confidence and morale. Now we have to play the World Cup runners-up. Hopefully we play at this level to get one step closer to our objective.”

Spain finished 2nd in their group, only behind Sweden. Despite finishing 2nd, they have a relatively easy fixture against Croatia in the round of 16.