Spanish skipper Ramos ready to ‘dance’ with Azzurri

Having suffered a 2-1 loss to Croatia in their final Group D game, reigning European champions Spain must face Italy in the last 16 of Euro 2016.

Spain now face a potentially tricky path to the final in Paris next month having surrendered an early lead to lose to Croatia in Bordeaux courtesy of goals near the end of each half from Nikola Kalinic and Ivan Perisic.

Alvaro Morata had scored his third goal of Euro 2016 in the seventh minute to give Vicente del Bosque’s team the perfect start. Spanish skipper Sergio Ramos admits the path to glory has become treacherous and the Real Madrid defender was left to rue a missed chance when he saw his second-half penalty saved by Danijel Subasic in the Croatian goal.

Despite that miss and the prospect of facing Italy for a place in the last eight, Ramos says Spain must be prepared for any challengers in their quest to win the European Championship for an historic third successive time.

“I had a chance to put my team ahead and unfortunately I couldn’t convert,” Ramos said. “It wasn’t to be. Now we have to dance with the favourites, but to be champions you have to beat everyone.” Spain are now 6.00 to win Euro 2016. Ramos says it is important that they learn the lessons from their defeat to Croatia.”

“We will concentrate on ourselves and think about the last 16. We need to turn the page, learn a lot of lessons from this, so that it doesn’t happen to us again in the last 16,” he added. Spain are 2.10 to beat Italy, who can be backed at 4.00, while the draw is 3.00.