France, England wary of Russia, Spain

France and England may be, in Bruno Bini's words, "heavyweights" in UEFA Women's EURO 2013 Group C but both he and Hope Powell are wary of Russia and Spain's abilities. UEFA.com hears from all four coaches after the draw.

Bruno Bini, France coach
I usually just take life as it comes, so that's what I'll do with this draw. We'll only know at the end of the group stage whether it's a good one or not. You never know how things are going to go in the tournament. France and England are said to be the heavyweights in the group given their respective rankings, because we've been at the [FIFA Women's] World Cup and the Olympics, but matches can be really complicated. We'll go into our opening game calmly, with desire and respect for our opponents, just as we always do, we're not going to change.

Hope Powell, England coach
It is tough, all the games are pretty tough. Now we know what we are up against, it is about doing our homework and getting the preparation right. But as a group, it's pretty challenging. We played France in the last couple of weeks [drawing 2-2], Russia in 2009 [winning 3-2] – quite a while ago – and Spain we've had a few duels with them which have always been quite challenging so all-in-all, a tough group. I expected that. Whichever group we ended up in would have been tough so it's preparation time now.

Sergei Lavrentyev, Russia coach
I'm neither happy nor unhappy. I think there are no weak teams here. We avoided the hosts and Germany... We'll have to prove ourselves, but I think we're getting ready for the competition in a good way. In Russia [women's] football is rising in popularity, every day more people are paying attention to it. The first game is against France, it's not going to be easy, they're a good team. They have more experience than us, they have played in international competitions for years, but I think we've got everything we need to compete against them. We trust in our team.

Ignacio Quereda, Spain coach
We are happy, because we managed to qualify for this final tournament. It's the second time that we've qualified for this ultimate level. We are very hopeful and proud, with a lot of anticipation ahead. We know England well, we've played them in the last two qualifying groups, for the [2011 FIFA Women's] World Cup and [2009] EURO. We know Russia as well, and as for France, we know them very well, too, although we haven't played them recently. We have a very deep friendship with them, and we've exchanged information with their federation many times, so we know them all pretty well. We will of course study and focus on them more deeply before the tournament, but we are happy and very optimistic.

Full draw

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