Slovakia defeat unfair, claims Juanfran

​Defender Juanfran has bemoaned Spain’s shock 2-1 defeat to Slovakia in Euro 2016 qualifying as an unfair result.

Substitute winger Miroslav Stoch scored the winner for Slovakia three minutes from time on Thursday after Paco Alcacer had seemingly earned a share of the spoils for the European champions by cancelling out Juraj Kucka’s frist-half opener in Zilina.

With two teams from each group and the top-ranked third-placed side qualifying directly for Euro 2016 in France, the result hardly represents a major blow to Spain’s hopes of reaching the finals.

Yet it does provide further evidence of an apparent decline being endured by a side that exited the World Cup at the group stage in June, having arrived in Brazil as defending champions.

Atletico Madrid right-back Juanfran, however, felt Vicente del Bosque’s men did enough to claim all three points.

“We have another game on Sunday [versus Luxembourg] and we’ll win that,” Juanfran said in quotes reported by AS.

“The result isn’t fair and we deserved to win. We had a lot of chances and they only had a few. They had luck in front of goal, which is what we wanted too.”

Juanfran was withdrawn for Santi Cazorla shortly before Spain’s 82nd-minute equaliser as Del Bosque attempted to try and salvage something from the game.

Cazorla was deployed as a makeshift right-back, a change that Juanfran does not believe contributed to Slovakia’s decisive second goal.

“The goal didn’t come because I was off the pitch,” he added.

“They had a good counter-attack, one of the few. We didn’t deserve that. All that remains is to offer our congratulations.”