Putellas promises more from in-form Spain

Two-goal Alexia Putellas believes Spain's best is still yet to come in the UEFA European Women's Under-17 Championship despite her side's 4-0 semi-final victory against Iceland on Thursday.

The holders had only Marina García's 12th-minute opener to show for their fine efforts before Putellas struck in the 34th and 36th minutes at the Stade Colovray – the first a poacher's strike after Alba Pomares had skilfully taken the ball down, the second a superbly-taken free kick.

And although La Rojita capped a dominant display when Glódís Perla Viggosdóttir inadvertently turned into her own net after more good work from Pomares, Putellas reckons her team still has a few more gears in them when they face France in Sunday's final.

"I don't think we've reached our peak just yet," Putellas told UEFA.com. "But we battled hard against Iceland and tried to attack them by playing good football and I think that was reflected in the scoreline in the end."

A member of the side which lifted this title last year, Putellas added: "For my first goal, I ran into the six-yard box just at the right moment and got my foot to the ball. For my second, it was my intention all along to curl the free-kick exactly into that part of the goal and I was very happy that I pulled it off."

Pomares was slightly surprised at the ease with which Spain cruised into their second final in a row, while remaining somewhat modest about her role in the fourth goal.

"I thought it would be a more difficult match," said the 15-year-old. "Iceland have very strong players and they fight for every ball, but we managed to play our game and stop them from playing theirs.

"I don't quite know what happened for the fourth but I had some free space and shot. I thought the goalkeeper had saved it but it bounced out again and came off the defender. I guess that shows it's always worth having a go at goal."

Meanwhile, Iceland captain Lára Kristín Pedersen lamented failing to reach the high standards set in qualifying when they won all six of their games, scored 37 goals and beat teams from Sweden, Italy and England.

Pedersen said: "We were nervous in the first half. The coach said to us at the break that we needed to relax. So we did that in the second half. It got better but it was still disappointing. It's difficult to play against a team like Spain. We have the ability to do that, but we just didn't show it today. At half-time, we thought we had nothing to lose. We wanted to show the fans and the [TV] audience that we could play."