Sergio Ramos described it as a “reality” and it was a troubling one. “We like to be honest, not to hide anything, to tell the truth,” Spain’s captain said, “and we have to say that this is not the path.” Actually, the path is shaping up to be a good one, two injury-time goals, one in each game in Group B, meaning Spain’s possible run to the final is likely to read something like Russia-Croatia-England rather than Uruguay-France-Brazil/Germany. But Ramos knows that the problem is not their opponents, it is Spain themselves. He admitted that the 2010 champions will have to improve to reach the final.

Fortunate to qualify for the last 16 in first place, Spain have conceded five goals at the World Cup – three against Portugal, two against Morocco – and it might have been more had Iran taken their chances in the second game in Kazan. In their fragility, Spain look very different to the team who went through the knockout rounds of Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 without conceding. “I have told the players that five goals conceded in two games is not the way: in this game we did all the good things and all the bad things too,” said the coach, Fernando Hierro.

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That was a message they made their own. Iago Aspas’s brilliant backheel, eventually granted by VAR almost three minutes after the linesman’s flag had been raised, secured a late equaliser for Spain that lifted them into first place and put them in the theoretically easier half of the draw. “We would have all signed up for this, going through in first, but it’s true that there are good games and bad games,” Aspas said. “We would have been happy to have gone through, although maybe not with this uncertainty. But we’re through. Now, it’s life and death games and that’s where we have to see the great team we really are.”

The problem is that Spain have not looked like a great team, certainly not defensively. If Andrés Iniesta and Isco shone at one end, at the other they looked vulnerable, easily opened up and suffering from a striking lack of assuredness. “We have to improve,” Thiago Alcántara said. “We know that five goals is a lot, too many, and we have to change that. We did some things well but there are details we got wrong and we have to stop that.”

Ramos added: “We have to win and also give a different account of ourselves, but winning is the most important thing. There are loads of things to improve; it wasn’t a good game at all. We have to correct things. You can allow those mistakes in the group stage when maybe you have some margin for error, but we have to sort it out. Now any detail can see you knocked out so we have to be very careful. When you let in goals, people point at the defence but we have to be calm, improve at every point of the pitch and look at it as a team and individually, myself first of all. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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“This is an important warning. We have to make this a turning point because when you have a defence that’s solid, that transmits a sense of security, and decisiveness, then it’s much more complicated for the other team to play against us. We hope we can find our level.”

While Spain’s players have been careful to draw a line under the dramatic unfolding of events on the eve of the tournament when the coach Julen Lopetegui was sacked, the upheaval cannot have helped. Ramos, though, said that was “no excuse” as it is still the “same players” and, asked whether Spain could win the World Cup, he replied: “I think so, of course. In South Africa we won it and against Chile we [had] suffered terribly. Now the good bit starts. Any mistake and you’re out. The level of demand and concentration has to go up.

“We have to get back to that routine of three or four games ago when we were letting in very few goals,” Ramos continued. “Hopefully we can leave this group stage behind and impose the football that everyone knows is ours, and expects of us.

“Opportunities always arise out of problems, chances to improve. In that sense I think that whatever may have happened, those things that people think maybe destabilise us or cause doubts can actually serve to make us stronger and more united and be even clearer about our objectives. We’re a national team that can aspire to win the World Cup but to do that we have to focus, commit fewer mistakes and play the way we know.”