Spain's strength satisfies Santisteban
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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Juan Santisteban praised his technical staff as well as his players as holders Spain reached the final after a 2-1 extra-time win against the still-proud Netherlands.
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Juan Santisteban, Spain coach
The feeling is always different. You come through a tournament like this, you win a match and you realise how many games the players have played in a short space of tinme. You can see tonight what a great effort it was not only for us but also the Dutch team. I think our mental strength has been very important and also physical strength. We have a great fitness trainer, a great technical staff and they've all helped, you can see tonight they had tremendous resources. Now we just have to hope we can recover in these couple of days for the final. Carles was absolutely exhausted, he said to me: "I really don't think I have anything left," so that was why we made the change, and it turned out to be avery happy substitution, because the goal [Ángel Martínez] scored was absolutely brilliant, it was beautiful in its execution, and it got us into the final.
Albert Stuivenberg, Netherlands coach
We are very disappointed with the final result, of course, I think we deserved more out of the game against a fantastic Spain side. But I am very, very proud of my players, what they showed today, I think they played very well especially in the first half, I think we deserved to be ahead. We were a bit unlucky with the equaliser, I didn't see it very well from my positon and after that it was everything or nothing, and in the end we have nothing because of a fantastic goal. We were playing a fantastic team, but we had the belief, everyone was very confident and you saw this in the first half but also the second half after the equaliser. Our players are smaller than the Spain players but they gave everything and that's why I am very proud of them. I didn't know if Spain were expecting us to defend so high up the pitch, and pressure them from the start. They were surprised by that. And we won a lot of ball in midfield, we did a great job there, and we also created some chances, more than Spain. The goal was a very good goal, a good finish. I was happy with the way they played today.