Del Bosque cautious ahead of Euro 2012

Vicente del Bosque will be guarding against complacency when Spain open the defence of their European crown against Italy on June 10.

The Spain head coach says his players need to forget their success and concentrate on winning their third consecutive major tournament in Poland and Ukraine.

Spain followed up their victory at the 2008 European Championships by winning the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Del Bosque believes several of the top teams – such as Italy, England and France – will make it difficult for his side having failed to impress in recent tournaments.

“As good players, (it is important) everything that happened in the last European Cup and World Cup does not affect us, because it is important to have excitement for a championship like the European Cup,” del Bosque said.

“It is very difficult to win in the current football and we cannot allow ourselves to think that we are the best because it would be the first step to fail.”

“We are going to defend the title we won in Austria, but we know that there are teams who had been poor like Italy, France and England.”

“Germany and Holland were already candidates. Portugal can also do something special, and there is also a chance of what happened in Portugal in 2004 where a team like Greece won the tournament.”

Spain have been drawn with Italy, the Republic of Ireland and Croatia in the group stage, and del Bosque believes Cesare Prandelli’s side will be the biggest challenge.

“(Italy) are the team we play first, therefore they are the most dangerous,” he said.

“It is true that they have potential, they have made some changes, and they have improved, but at the moment it is the first match, so the most difficult.”

Slaven Bilic, who coaches Spain’s Group C rival Croatia, admits del Bosque’s side are favourites to win the tournament but said the world champions have shown they are not invincible.

“Spain are great. They are the firm favourites but it wasn’t easy for them in 2008 and it was not easy for them in 2010,” Bilic said.

“The pressure is on them, I’m sure they can cope with the pressure because they are champions, they are also strong mentally.”

“It may sound contradictional (sic) but (playing Spain) is the toughest game but the easiest to prepare for because you are almost reduced to one way of playing – to be tight and a little bit deeper and to try to break them with not as many players.”

“We all have different kind of ideas of how to play against them but more or less it’s up to them. I don’t think that any team will have more ball possession than Spain when you play against them so your options are reduced but you can harm them.”