Spain's head coach Luis de la Fuente spoke about the criticism of the match schedule from many football figures.
"A study conducted by FIFA over the past 12 years has shown that the percentage of minutes played by players for national teams is 3.5%. National team matches do not injure anyone.
If I had players at the club for ten or eleven months, I would have arranged their breaks differently, but as a coach I must always call up the best players. We have to compete, and for that we need the best," 90min quoted de la Fuente as saying.