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Spain's second-half revival calms De la Fuente

Luis de la Fuente said Group A winners Spain had shown "pace, intensity and rhythm" while Emílio Peixe said Portugal had "played pretty well" in ensuring their progress.

Álvaro Vadillo celebrates scoring Spain's second goal
Álvaro Vadillo celebrates scoring Spain's second goal ©Sportsfile

NETHERLANDS 2-3 SPAIN
Wim van Zwam, Netherlands coach
We bowed out with our best performance. Spain are an excellent team and I congratulate them on their win. We matched them for about 70 minutes but then it was over for us. I am very proud of my players for producing this performance. It was a beautiful match between two teams who played the way the game should be played. Nobody was satisfied with the Portugal game; we did a bad job that day and we're not going through because of that. Although we scored five goals in the tournament, we conceded nine which is too many. Of course we are disappointed now but our aim was to go home with our heads held high having showed we could play good football and we have achieved that tonight.

Luis de la Fuente, Spain coach
First and foremost, we would like to pay tribute to those who died in the recent train crash in Santiago [de Compostela]. We are very hurt and affected by the news and would like to offer all of our support to the families affected and those injured. In regards to the game, we leave here a happy team. We came up against great rivals tonight who caused us a lot of difficulties, especially in the first half when they were the better team. We weren't playing with the required intensity. I congratulate the Netherlands on their efforts and for the fact that they really made us work. We were a different team after the break; we were back to ourselves. We played with a lot of pace, intensity, rhythm and showed instinctive finishing.

PORTUGAL 4-2 LITHUANIA
Emílio Peixe, Portugal coach
Once more we played pretty well tonight. We knew the difficulties that Lithuania would cause us, and they proved to be strong physically. They're strong in tackles and dangerous from free-kicks, as they showed – that's how they scored twice. [Lithuania's second goal] was a move we hadn't seen before. They surprised us but that proves what we said: they're a strong team that fights hard, but we were clever in the way we played. We had control of the match and were able to win it. We're very happy to be in the semi-finals, we were never favourites in this tournament but we're going to face Serbia in the same humble way we've played every game. [Marcos Lopes] is getting better as the tournament goes on and [Leandro Silva, Bernardo Silva] are obviously quality players but individuals only succeed if the group is also strong. We're an organised, strong team and when you play like that, individuals will always flourish.

Antanas Vingilys, Lithuania coach
It's always a shame to lose but it depends how you lose – the way we lost today means we don't need to let our heads drop. We have plenty to work on and this gives us the motivation to do that. Portugal are a very well-prepared team, they're good physically and that showed today. We looked a bit tired as this was our third match and we've had a couple of injuries, and at the end we lacked a bit of concentration because of that. The biggest plus of this tournament for us is the fantastic support of the fans. Even today, when we lost and conceded four goals, they cheered us; it was fantastic and it will give the players the inspiration to continue their careers with the clubs and the national teams.

 

 

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