Marley enjoying view from cloud nine

England manager Mo Marley admitted the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship has "been a dream to date" after her team claimed their place in Saturday's final with a hugely-impressive 3-0 victory over Switzerland. Though her attack did much of the damage, particularly Toni Duggan, Marley reserved special praise for her defenders for keeping Germany's tormentor-in-chief, Ramona Bachmann, in check. For Swiss coach Yannick Schwery, "the dream is over, now the next one starts", and as his disappointed players exchanged shirts with their English counterparts he was keen to point out that by merely reaching the last four his side had made history.

Mo Marley, England manager
We knew the Swiss were a very strong team. We spent the last couple of days making sure we were organised – we knew they had a lot of threat going forward. We recognised we had to defend exceptionally well if we were going to get anything out of the game. As a team, collectively, we defended fantastically. You've got to give credit to the two centre-halves; they had a specific job to do and rose to the challenge, they were outstanding. So were the team as a whole. When you defend well it gives you the licence to get forward.

Three months ago I was thinking [exhales loudly] this team is quite naïve, it's got energy, ability and a passionate desire to play the game in the right way but…. They were quite inexperienced but we've spent a lot of time off the pitch trying to help them mature, to understand the game and take that on to the field and I think that's been the difference over the past couple of months. They've got better and better and better. Today their performance matched their ability – in the past it's always been just about potential. From a coach's perspective it's been a dream to date. We've got the fine details right and that's the difference between success and failure.

Yannick Schwery, Switzerland coach
The girls are all very disappointed but I have to congratulate England; they were a very good team, with very good players, playing a very good match. For the spectators it was a good advert for the WU19 game but for us it's difficult – tomorrow we will fly home. We wanted to win, we do with every game. We are disappointed but as I told the girls, they have nothing to be ashamed of. Switzerland have never had a women's team in the last four of a major competition. I just told the girls: 'the dream is over, now the next one starts'.

It's very important that our players are playing games like this. Almost all of them are used to playing in a country where the level of club football is usually very low and now we can see that this really is another step up. We are not able to compete yet; we have to work. After the Germany game it was difficult. Before the tournament everybody says 'Germany, Germany, Germany'. We beat them 3-0, so then everybody says 'Switzerland, Switzerland, Switzerland' and for the girls it was a completely new experience. We told them that against Germany they didn't need to worry – they could play, do their own thing. But then against France ... the girls needed a bit more mental preparation.