Spain goalscorer Cesc Fabregas has hit out at the state of the pitch at the PGE Arena in Gdansk after the defending European champions were held to a 1-1 draw by Italy in their opening match.

Fabregas grabbed the equaliser for Vicente Del Bosque's men shortly after Antonio Di Natale had put Group C rivals Italy ahead after 61 minutes.

Spain had chance to win the game late on, but substitute Fernando Torres proved wasteful in front of goal.

Italy gave as good as they got but Barcelona forward Fabregas felt the slow pitch at prevented Spain from playing the high-tempo passing game that has made them the number one team in the world.

"I don't want to complain, but we deserve much more," Fabregas said. "It is lamentable that we have to play on a pitch like this.

"It has been a difficult match, the most difficult one we have in the group against a very strong rival.

"After going behind it is not a bad result. We are still dependent on ourselves. We have shown character and played well."

Spain lined up without a recognised striker, with Fabregas preferred to Torres in a 4-6-0 formation but coach Del Bosque insisted he had made the right call.

"We wanted to have superiority in the midfield so that we could have possession and arrive higher up the pitch. David Silva, Cesc and Andres Iniesta arrived very well from the second line of attack and I think they did very well in a lot of moments.

"The plan didn't go badly, Cesc did very well in this position. When Fernando Torres came on the match was much more open. We had more chances to score, but so did they and we can't forget that. Time will tell whether this is a good point or not."

Spain at times looked uncharacteristically slack in possession, particularly in the first half, but Del Bosque was quick to give credit to Italy's pressing game.

"We knew Italy were going to press us high and they wanted to take the initiative. I had already warned that they are very dangerous and that has been the case," he added.

Italy boss Cesare Prandelli was disappointed his side allowed Spain back into the game just three minutes after Di Natale's opener.

"What disappointed me about this evening was that we allowed them to equalise so quickly. We were playing against the world champions but we should have made it more difficult for them after we scored," he said. "We need to improve on certain things.

"We were a little surprised with Spain's line-up but we agreed that we needed to focus on our own game.

"We will analyse this game and work on some things. We expended a lot of energy which we will need to recover for our next match."

As for Mario Balotelli's performance, Prandelli said he had already decided to remove the striker after he dallied too long when clean through on goal., 

“I don’t know what happened to Mario when he was alone in front of Iker Casillas," he said. "He probably had two options and in these cases a striker should only have one. He should’ve passed it to Antonio Cassano.

“I will talk to him and we’ll see. His booking didn’t worry me more than a little, either. I want my strikers to always give 100 per cent. The substitution? I had already decided to bring on Di Natale before the error, so it was not punishment.”