Spain snatch the points

Slovenia 1: Zahovic 59

Spain 2: Raul 5, Etxeberria 60

Referee: M Merk (Germany).

Booked: Spain - Aranzabal (62 mins), Helguera (82 mins). Slovenia - Pavlin (10 mins), Milanic (24 mins), Novak (53 mins), Karic (85 mins).

In the stands they sang their hearts out from beginning to end, a entirely fitting reflection of the efforts the players put in on the pitch. Had Slovenia caught Spain in the opening round of games the combination might even have been enough to yield a famous victory but Jose Antonio Camacho's men were always going to be a different animal with elimination staring them in the face and so the Slovenians had to content themselves with pride rather than points.

If the underdogs were going to achieve anything of real significance second time out it seemed that they would have to repeat the sort of storming start that they enjoyed against their neighbours in Charleroi last Tuesday. Rather than dominating early on, however, Srecko Katanec's side this time conceded an early goal and for some time afterwards there must have been the fear on their bench as well as amongst their sizeable crowd of supporters in the stands that they would start to fall apart instead.

It would be easy to put the goal down to a combination of inexperience and an inability to start such a big game fully alert to the sort of difficulties that such strong opponents would cause them. But even if the chance had come a little later it's hard to see what might have been done about it.

As it was when, after just four minutes, one centre back threw himself into the path of Michel Salgado's shot in order to prevent it reaching Mladen Dabanovic's goal behind him it looked like a typically gutsy piece of defending by one of Katanec's remarkably committed players. There was really no accounting for the rebound falling so kindly to Real Madrid's Raul nor for the 22-year-old so sweetly pulling the ball onto his left foot with one touch and then finding the top corner with his second.

Three times during the first period Mladen Rudonja might have levelled the game and the 28-year-old, who played last night on the left side of midfield in order to allow Zlatko Zahovic spend more time up front, will probably not enjoy watching the replays of his attempts on goal.

The fact that the chances were created, though, and that the Slovenians were winning possession in every area of the pitch as well as moving the ball forward without any great difficulty suggested that the Spanish were storing up trouble for themselves.

Around the Slovenian area Raul, later named Man of the Match, was a constant threat but the attacking midfielders, most notably Gaizka Mendieta - one of four changes from the side that lost to Norway - were persistently ineffectual and the supply to the Real striker and his partner Alfonso was lamentably poor for the bulk of the opening hour.

Just short of that mark the Slovenians appeared to have made the Spanish pay for not consolidating their early advantage with a quick break out of defence allowing Rudonja to tear into empty space down the left from where he found both Milan Osterc and Zahovic unmarked in the centre. The substitute was better placed for the shot but in slightly school-boyish fashion he left it for the team's star whose shot then took a deflection off his team-mate before hopping past Santiago Canizares and into the net.

From the kick-off Spain retook the lead, Mendieta springing into life to set up a 10-yard shot for Joseba Etxeberria which, while driven straight at the goalkeeper, had too much power on it to be kept out. Abelardo, having earlier saved his side with a brilliant intervention that took the ball off Zahovic's toe on the edge of the sixyard box, then went close to making it 3-1 with a shot that just missed the target.

When the final whistle arrived, the relief of the Spanish was obvious with half of the team staying on the pitch to celebrate.

The result, as Raul was quick to point afterwards, was enough in itself to make this a good night for his team but with two rounds of matches now played in Group C the Spaniards are a little closer to justifying their pre-tournament tag as one of the favourites than last night's opponents are to conceding that they are out of their depths here, fighting it out amongst Europe's elite.