Hunter delights in breathless finale

England and France reached the semi-finals of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship in contrasting fashion as both recorded victories in the final round of Group B matches. Jean Gallice's side clinched the section with a narrow win against Armenia, while England scored twice in the last ten minutes to deny Norway a place in the final four. On Tuesday, Germany are France's opponents while England meet Serbia and Montenegro. uefa.com spoke to those involved.

ENGLAND 3-2 NORWAY
Martin Hunter, England coach
It's a terrific result for us, we knew Norway would be a very difficult team to play against. I was very pleased with the start and then very, very disappointed with the way we conceded the first goal, which came from a couple of our errors. They made it difficult by putting an extra defender on, so we played with virtually five up front for the last 20 minutes. Then having gone 2-1 down, you think that's probably your chance gone, but there's fantastic resilience in this team – you'd expect that from an England team – and I'm delighted for the players. It was a battle this evening, in the last ten years of international football I've not had a game like that, so it was difficult. I thought our chance had gone with ten minutes to go, I've had a few tight squeezes but that…

Tor Ole Skullerund, Norway coach
I'm thinking "Did that really happen?" We thought we'd won it with ten minutes left, but you saw what happened. We gave away three goals from corners, and we're not used to that. That's normally one of our strengths, so it's strange that we should concede goals in this way. England fought well, although both teams did that; they were tough, and I wish them good luck for the semi-finals. We thought this was Norway's chance, for once in a lifetime to go to the semi-finals, so it feels very hard now. But that's the way it is. It's been a close group, a tough group with small margins and there's little to separate who's going home and who's going on. I feel that we could have been there, but those small margins did not go in our favour. I think France and England are good teams, and they might both go all the way.

ARMENIA 0-1 FRANCE
Armenian coach Samuel Petrosyan
We proved that in competing at this tournament that Armenia are capable of taking on the football powers like France and England. We coped well in all three games we played and I think that for our first competitive international tournament we have acquitted ourselves well. We only have five 19-year-old players in the squad, so there is more to come from the younger players who will be around next season. Overall, I think the tournament is set up for a final between France and Serbia and Montenegro. The French have a very strong team.

Jean Gallice, France coach
I thought that we controlled the game – if not all of it, then most of it. But we were aware that Armenia would pose a danger and they need to be respected. The first thing for us was not to lose the match. Of course, we wanted to win and we came out with that in mind from the very start. We put a lot of effort into creating chances, but they also tried very hard to minimise our threat as much as possible. I have to give them credit for the intense match that they played.