Mission accomplished for Milla's Spain

Spain coach Luis Milla admitted his side had "achieved an important objective" after La Roja came through a tricky test in ultimately emphatic fashion, beating Croatia 3-0 to advance to next summer's UEFA European Under-21 Championship with a 5-1 aggregate victory.

Holding a slender 2-1 advantage over their play-off opponents going into Tuesday's second leg in Varazdin, Spain had to wait until the 67th minute to break the deadlock with Álvaro Domínguez slamming home from Juan Mata's corner. The hosts were reduced to ten men shortly afterwards when Dejan Lovren received two yellow cards in quick succession and with the tie heading for injury time, goals from Adrián and Jeffren secured victory for the two-time tournament winners.

"We knew that this was going to be a very tricky encounter and so it proved," Milla explained afterwards. "[Croatia] were very solid in midfield; we had to work hard to earn this victory but in the second half we managed to tilt the balance in our favour."

The former FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF and Valencia CF midfielder was promoted to U21 coaching duties having led Spain to a runners-up spot at last summer's UEFA European U19 Championship in France. Achieving seven points from nine available allowed his new charges to qualify behind the Netherlands in Group 4, thus setting up an eliminator with Croatia.

"When I arrived to take over this team in the middle of the qualifying phase the goal was to get through the group and into a play-off," the 44-year-old said. "We've now done that and we'll travel to next summer's finals full of hope and to give a good account of ourselves. We're also obviously eager to earn a place at the 2012 Olympic Games."

Croatia coach Dražen Ladić, meanwhile, was graceful in defeat. "As soon as we got Spain in the draw, I knew it would be very hard to beat them, but today we did not have the right mindset to win," he said. "Regardless of talent, for such important matches you have to be the best side mentally. In the first 70 minutes we played our best football of the whole qualifying tournament, but against Spain you have to make the most of even the smallest opportunity, and we didn't do that from five or six chances."

The hosts had the additional disadvantage of being without captain Ivan Rakitić from the 14th minute, with the midfielder taken to hospital after a clash of heads loosened his front teeth and left him briefly unconscious. "We had a few doses of bad luck and Rakitić's injury definitely unsettled our plans," said Ladić.