Pauw praises Dutch 'maturity'

Netherlands coach Vera Pauw complimented her team for "playing above themselves" after they got their UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ campaign off to a successful start with a 2-0 win over Ukraine. Opposite number Anatoliy Kutsev said some of his team had suffered from nerves but maintained that they were still hopeful they could at least finish in third place in Group A.

Vera Pauw, Netherlands coach
We are so proud, coming here for the first time and getting off to a dream start. The players gave everything and it was an outstanding performance. I'm so proud that instead of performing less because of playing in this tournament and everything that goes with it, they played above themselves. It's a big compliment to my team and my only complaint is that we made too many fouls. We did not leave anything in the game apart from maybe scoring even more goals. We focused on not giving goals away after half-time. The result was the only thing that counted and that's why we did not go for it in the second half.

The little jump that I gave at the end of the match was one of relief. The players have matured so much. We have prepared in a structured way to help them and have put a lot of energy into making things different every day. Last night the players organised some funny games to get the tension out of their bodies. That was better than going to their rooms and getting all nervous.

Anatoliy Kutsev, Ukraine coach
If someone had said to me that we would have been 2-0 down by the tenth minute of the first game I would not have believed it and it put us in a very difficult situation. In this strong tournament with the 12 best teams in Europe it is almost impossible to get out of such a situation especially with the psychological problems we had after the first ten minutes. Luckily after the break we managed to make some changes and the game changed for the better so this gives us hope.

The way the tournament is scheduled and the fact that the best two third-finishing teams go through means we are not out or down. Some of our players were too nervous and unfortunately these players were expected to be our best players. Our full-backs and wingers are really fast but when we got down the flanks it did not work as it should have done.