Tension then joy for durable England

England manager Hope Powell was delighted but relieved to have emerged as 3-2 winners from their UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ quarter-final against Finland, describing it as "tense and scary" at the end. Finland counterpart Michael Käld could not hide his disappointment, particularly over England's third goal and said Eniola Aluko kept on running as if she was in "Oxford Street".

Hope Powell, England manager
I'm delighted for everyone involved. It's the first time we are in the semi-final [in the competition's current format] but it was really tough. It was scary and very tense at the end, I was looking at the clock and it seemed to stand still for 20 minutes. You have to give Finland a lot of credit. They played to their strengths – for corners and long balls – and it was a real dogfight. They did not allow us to play our normal game but fortunately for us we came out on top. You have not seen us at our best today but what we have seen in this tournament is guts, grit and fight and if we can't play our game but we win through grit and guts I will take that every time. For everyone involved here it's a massive achievement but hopefully we still have two games left. We want to be here to the end. Faye White will probably need an x-ray on her cheekbone. She's used to knocks and bruises but she has a great spirit and really got behind the girls at half-time. It's too early to say if she will be available for the semi-final.

Eniola Aluko, England striker & Carlsberg Player of the Match
The second goal was the kind you dream about and I can't believe I did it. We have variations of kick-offs. Fara passed it to me and once I had beat the first player I decided to keep going and it opened up for me. Then it opened up again and I decided to shoot. I was delighted to score and make a contribution to the win. I said before that it was one of the biggest games of our careers and we really dug it out. It was a bit scary at the end but it was a really good performance by us.

Michael Käld, Finland coach
I'm very disappointed with the result and very proud of the team. We worked hard and the players showed they wanted to win. We fought to the bitter end and everybody did their jobs. England might think they worked hard for their goals but they were easy. Their third goal... it just can't happen. We talked about it for four or five hours before the game, we were prepared but still they scored. It was a total blackout for everyone on our team. It must have felt like Oxford Street for the England team, for our part there were people in the way but nobody did anything about it. But that's football and we have to learn from it. We said at half-time that if we could get into extra time then it would be good for us because we had two more rest days than them and England had three tough games in the group. I think we deserved a draw after 90 minutes and then anything could have happened.