Ghedin grateful for Italian steel

Italy beat Russia 2-0 to finish second in UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ Group C and earn a Friday quarter-final with holders Germany. Victorious coach Pietro Ghedin praised his side's spirit in withstanding waves of opposition attacks before two late goals took them through, while Russia are out, leading Igor Shalimov to feel his side had the shape to progress but perhaps not the belief.

Pietro Ghedin, Italy coach
It was an open game. Russia had many chances to score in the first half, but we also had one big chance. After the first goal Russia lost heart and we played really well. We didn't leave one bit of space for the strikers as Russia have four or five. Our defence and midfield did a superb job. I don't want to talk about Germany but we are not afraid.

Russia played really well, I like their style, but we covered a lot of space. We had some luck but sometimes in football you score and sometimes you don't and it is very difficult to recover. I am very happy about how we are playing, we are in good condition and this is one of our best results in the last 20 years. We got six points, that wasn't easy for us, and we beat two big teams like England and Russia. The players are a very close group. When we play together sometimes we are limited, but we succeed due to our teamwork.

Igor Shalimov, Russia coach
I am very disappointed we didn't win, of course, because there is no satisfaction from our performance in this championship. In this team we have eight players who won the 2005 [UEFA] European Women's Under-19 Championship and here these players got experience at senior level and saw what they should do to get up to that level. Of course if we had achieved better results it would have been a great boost to the development of women's football in Russia, unfortunately we didn't do it but we had hoped to.

It's not a good start [after a year in charge] but I have a contract until 2011 and in order to succeed we should do everything correctly, starting from the coaches to the technical staff to the players. Of course we hope to reach the [2011 FIFA Women's World Cup] finals and these players have a chance to show their talents. We will do our best to qualify. This year we noticed that a lot of teams in Europe have progressed very quickly. I also hope our team can achieve this. Physically our team was quite fit and as for tactics and strategy, we were quite well organised but our problem was in the psychology of our players. Maybe in their hearts they don't believe they can beat teams like Sweden, England and Germany.