Spain blitzes Young Socceroos

It took Spain just over a minute to open the scoring through midfielder Sergi Roberto before striker Alvaro Vazquez went on a scoring rampage with the first of his three goals coming in the sixth minute.

By the 19th minute Vazquez had a hat-trick to leave the Aussies reeling at 4-0.

Kerem Bulut pegged one back for Australia in the 27th minute before Spain hit back soon after with a penalty to playmaker Sergio Canales.

Spain had already qualified for the knockout round and won despite resting several regular starters including Rodrigo, Oriol Romeu, Isco and Cristian Tello.

It was also was also without injured starting goalkeeper Aitor.

With all five goals scored in the first half, Spain finished first in Group C with nine points from three matches while Australia ended the tournament with just one point.

"Six minutes and it's already 2-0. Thirteen minutes it's 3-0 and eighteen minutes it's 4-0. Then you have to play against Spain which is one of the better teams in this World Cup, who are very good at possessing the ball, moving the ball around, a lot of technical skills. After six minutes you can almost say the game is gone," Young Socceroos head coach Jan Versleijen said afterwards.

"It is very obvious that, in the first 15 minutes of this game, especially in the backline, we had some players that were not at a World Cup level.

"And if you're not concentrating and not in the game then against good opposition like Spain you will be penalised straight away.

"The thing is, when you have to play a third game against one of the better teams in this World Cup and you know you have to win this game, you have to also take some risks.

"But Spain took very good advantage of the risk that we had to take in order to put more pressure on them."

Versleijen was full of praise for opponent Spain.

"It is very obvious that Spain has a good team. They play beautiful football and they are a very technical side," he said.

"I think they have a good chance to reach the finals.

"It's difficult to say which team they will possibly meet in the final as I don't know exact cross-overs.

"But from this tournament I see that Nigeria is very strong and also Colombia makes a very good impression."

Despite the early exit, Versleijen is already looking to the next challenge.

"For us the World Cup of course is finished," he said.

"For five of the players here at this World Cup are also eligible for the next World Cup.

"This will start already next week when we go to a preparation tournament in Japan and in October we have the pre-qualifiers in Asia."