Spain continued to keep pace with Slovakia atop Group C with a 1-0 win in Belarus, putting the team in prime position to qualify for the 2016 European Championship next summer.

With the three points, Spain now has 15 points in the group, three behind Slovakia. More importantly, Spain is three points ahead of Ukraine, while opening up an 11-point lead on fourth place Belarus. At this point Spain can be all but assured of a Top 3 finish in the group round.

That, of course, is not good enough for Europe's reigning champs. There is still a long way to go for Spain to reclaim its crown. Here are a few takeaways from the win.

David Silva is the Catalyst

Offensively he was everywhere. He scored the game winner, a goal that required tremendous patience and yet quick thinking. He completed three key passes, had two shots on target (behind forward Alvaro Morata) and was simply the creative force behind any Spanish threat.

He was also huge defensively, pitching in with five tackles (more on the team) and two interceptions (fourth on the team).

With each game in this qualifier, Silva has slowly turned into the team's main man. When he is around and at his best, Spain looks dangerous. When he is not, the team founders.

Defense looked compact

The backline of Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos, Jordi Alba and Juanfran Torres had a terrific game, looking well poised throughout the evening and even offering up some danger offensively. Pique and Ramos offered the team some strong aerial potential while Juanfran and Alba were intelligent on the wings. Adding pace to the attack, but also looking rather disciplined going back and cutting down the Belarusian attack.

It does help to have Pique back at his best as he provides strong cover and good positional defense when in top form. He was certainly showing just that on Sunday.

Iker Casillas, the elephant in the room, made a solid stop, but was otherwise untroubled in the match.

Spain is still rather toothless in attack

Everyone is used to a 1-0 Spanish win at this point in the time. The problem is that the team has not really managed to find a way to win by more than one goal and make their lives easier in attack.

Part of the result on Sunday included some solid goaltending from Belarus' Andrey Gorbunov, but it also resulted from Spain failing to truly threaten from close range. Pedro continues to look ineffective, failing to use his speed to create space or even challenge defenders.

Alvaro Morata was more up to the task of using space, but did so rarely.

Spain managed 10 shots on target from 22 shots overall. The team still plays a similar style, which essentially gives the opposition little to do outside of parking the bus and prepping for a counter attack.

This might come down to Vicente del Bosque who has not tried to turn Spain into a more versatile side on the attack. Time and again, one would look for Spain to break on the counter, but instead the side holds up the play and preps its passing game to little avail.