Norway display does Torske 'proud'

Norway coach Jarl Torske hailed his team's "fantastic spirit" after seeing them become the first side to defeat Germany at the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship for three years. The holders produced a dynamic performance in Wednesday's semi-final, but could only draw 1-1 with their determined Scandinavian opponents, whose subsequent 4-2 success in the penalty shoot-out left Germany coach Maren Meinert bitterly disappointment for her players. "They deserved better today," she said.

Maren Meinert, Germany coach
First I want to say that I'm really proud of my players. That's what I have just told them. They put in a really strong performance, but unfortunately we didn't kill the game in the first 90 minutes. Overall, I don't think we did much wrong. We were fantastic in defence, we tackled well and tactically played a very clever match. I thought we weren't lacking much in attack either. We were on top in the first 90 minutes and we were also the better team in extra time. But in a knockout game anything game happen. A penalty shoot-out is always a lottery and unfortunately it didn't go our way.

The Norway equaliser irritated us a bit for the next 15 or 20 minutes, which is understandable as we had been on top for 50 minutes and that was their first chance. But we came back strongly and started playing as we had done in the first half. We put in a lot of effort during the tournament so you could see we were struggling a bit in terms of fitness in extra time. But we still pressurised them and everyone could see we really wanted to win. That's why I am proud of the players. I can understand they feel disappointed because they deserved better today.

Jarl Torske, Norway coach
The girls were quite nervous and they were too passive at the start. I was surprised because the atmosphere in the dressing room was good before the game. After conceding in the first minute and struggling for the rest of the first half, we had to make some changes. We put on a new player [Hege Hansen] and got back into the match, scoring a really important equaliser. In extra time we had some counterattacks but Germany were still very dangerous. By the end, I was quite calm. During the penalties, I thought 'this is going to be our day' – and it was.

I'm so proud of the way the girls fought. Getting a goal behind could have killed us – we had some scary moments. But the spirit was fantastic and I could see the girls didn't want to die today. Germany created more chances, but that's normal because they're a great team. Our goalkeeper played well and our defence remained solid. The centre-backs [Maren Mjelde and Caroline Walde] have played so well throughout the whole tournament. I'm so proud of them.

Now we're into the final and that's a great feeling. Physically and mentally it's hard to recover from playing extra time in the semi-final. All that matters now is recovery so we'll have a very quiet day tomorrow before starting to think about Italy. We know Italy well. We beat them in qualifying then lost to them in the group stage here. I think it will be a good final because they're a really good team.