Capel and Co acknowlege Spain's close-run thing

The smooth ride that had been Spain's journey through the UEFA European Under-21 Championship took a nasty jolt at the semi-final stage, but after narrowly avoiding elimination their players could start looking forward to Saturday's decisive match with Switzerland.

Trailing to a first-half Andrei Voronkov goal, Spain had to wait until the 89th minute to regain parity. Once level, and with Belarus minds maybe lingering on what might have been, Luis Milla's team eased clear in extra time with Adrián López scoring his second of the night and substitute Jeffren Suárez putting the seal on victory.

Spain's replacements played a key role in the comeback. One of those, Diego Capel, set up Adrián's 105th-minute header and acknowledged his side had been in a real battle in Viborg. "The truth is that this was a very difficult game," he said. "The team have done a great job. After that equaliser, we dominated and it killed the game for them psychologically."

Milla, unsurprisingly, had stuck with the same XI that began the last two games – a couple of wins, five goals scored and none conceded tells its own story. His team struggled to open up Belarus, though, especially after going behind. It took the introduction of Capel, Jeffren and Bojan Krkić to give Spain the spark they needed.

"To be honest, we're very content," the Sevilla FC winger, 23, said. "Not only with the players who came on, but the ones on the bench as well, who have all worked hard to get here." Spain also achieved their first objective of the finals. "Yes, to qualify for the Olympics was a key target. We are now going to this final and we hope to bring the title back to Spain."

Jeffren's 113th-minute effort put the icing on the cake, but as the FC Barcelona player said himself, he nearly did not get that chance. "After they scored the opener they played very deep," said the 23-year-old, whose cross for Adrián's first goal was probably his most telling contribution. "We managed to make it into extra time, and did what we know best, and it went well."

Despite the late drama, Adrián felt Spain deserved their success. "We had 20 shots on target and they had only two, so in the end I think football was loyal to us tonight," said the forward who, with five strikes, is the tournament's leading scorer by two goals.

It was an opinion Jeffren shared. "We were hurting on the bench. We controlled the match from the beginning and the ball just didn't want to go in, but in the end we had the luck to find the net." And so, after coming within an ace of being derailed by Belarus, the Spain train rolls on, with a final against Switzerland in Aarhus their last destination as they bid to win the title for a third time.