Marley happy to bury Swedish ghost

England manager Mo Marley was thrilled with her side's emphatic 3-0 victory over Sweden in Group B on Monday, a result that helped bury the ghost of last year's painful elimination. The Scandinavian team progressed to the last four at England's expense 12 months ago after holding them to a draw, yet a repeat never looked likely in Minsk as the 2007 finalists dominated proceedings. Marley praised her players for learning from their past mistakes, while opposite number Calle Barrling attributed Sweden's below-par performance to "a lack of match fitness" before promising a response against Iceland on Thursday.

Mo Marley, England manager
I'm very happy with the performance against a strong Sweden team. I wasn't really sure what level we would be at after the changes that have been made and I was surprised with what we offered. But this result is reward for all the hard work the girls have put in over the last three months. We were very disappointed last year when Sweden were fortunate to go through [to the semi-finals] at our expense, but that's been a massive learning experience for us. The pleasing thing is that we didn't make the same mistakes today. We made some mistakes in general play but we didn't make any that cost us.

Despite getting an early lead, I thought the game was always on edge and we were always apprehensive on the touchline. The fact we got goals early on naturally helped because players of this age group can lose a bit of belief and confidence. But we should give credit to Sweden. They pushed two up front in the second half and changed their formation which made it difficult for us. The difference was that we didn't have to come out and score so we could slow the pace down and stop the way that they play. The girls are ecstatic in the changing room but we won't get carried away. It's been good day at the office. We planned for this game for three months, now we have to think about the next two days and get ready for the next game.

Calle Barrling, Sweden coach 
I'm surprised we couldn't hold England off for more than 20 minutes. When they scored the first goal they got the confidence they need to play their way of football, while I think we looked a bit heavy and seemed to lack speed. I am worried about that because many of the girls sit on the bench for the clubs in the Swedish first division, which is not good if you want to compete with England. We also had some problems this week so we had to make changes to the back four. I was worried this might happen because we haven't played enough difficult games and lack match fitness.

We made changes at half-time and it helped. We only had shots from distance in the first half but we created three good chances after the break. I changed things to try to get the ball in their half more. We were only playing long balls because they gave us no time on the ball. We don't want to play football like that, we want to pass the ball. We improved but not enough to threaten England. They had seven or eight quality chances. Usually we don't give our opponents eight chances. We are not out. There are two more games to play that will be even more important than this one because we knew England were a very good side. Next time we will be much better, I promise that.