Also on Sept 5, Cristiano Ronaldo reached another impressive milestone by scoring his 900th career goal as Portugal beat Croatia 2-1 at home.
Eight of Spain's starting line-up in their Euro 2024 final victory over England almost two months ago were on the field at kick-off against the Serbs in Belgrade.
Among them was Lamine Yamal, with the Barcelona prodigy just one of the Spanish players to be denied by home goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic.
De la Fuente's team are also the reigning Nations League champions, having won the most recent edition in 2023.
They will now hope to register their first victory in League A, Group 4 when they face Switzerland in Geneva on Sept 8.
"We lacked mostly everything in the first half," the coach said.
"In the second half we were better and much improved but lacked effectively up front. We could have done better, players were a little tired, the heat was excruciating and we ran out of gas.
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