Smerecki salutes France character

France coach Francis Smerecki was celebrating a triumph of "enthusiasm, generosity and heart" after his side recovered from a one-goal half-time deficit to win the UEFA European Under-19 Championship for the first time since 2005. Beaten coach Luis Milla, meanwhile, was left ruing his team's failure to build on Rodrigo's first-half opener, Gilles Sunu's equaliser early in the second period setting the stage for Alexandre Lacazette's dramatic late winner.

Francis Smerecki, France coach
The players have been great throughout the tournament. We've had some difficult times, like we did in the first half, but we rediscovered our enthusiasm, generosity and heart in the second period. The boys are champions of Europe – and they deserve it. We've been together for four years and we deserve this; we lost to Spain in the U17 final but today it's our turn. I think we'll be celebrating tonight.

We saw in the first half how good Spain are, and we showed them too much respect – we let them play their own game. There was a lot of heart in the second half and that transformed the match – the fans got behind us too and that made the difference. We really saw two matches tonight. In the first half we were too respectful and impressed with Spain – we had a certain apprehension of them and there was a fear of losing. But we showed our great qualities after the break. In the second half we found what we showed in the first four matches.

Luis Milla, Spain coach
It was a tough match, as I said it would be. It really was a match of two halves; we had the advantage in the first half, France did in the second. I'm proud of my players, they gave everything they had. We controlled the match in the first half but once France equalised they had the advantage, especially with the fans behind them, and it ended in a defeat for us.

We deserved better for the style of football we played. We were controlling the match at half-time and France were in difficulties, but matches last 90 minutes and we weren't able to stay with France in the second half. At this level, you lose a match on small details. Once France equalised they had the upper hand – the crowd got behind them and they imposed their rhythm. We weren't able to play as we had in the first half. The first half was a demonstration of how we've shown we can play in this competition, against Portugal, Italy and, especially, England. France turned the match around after half-time and we weren't able to respond.