De Haan delighted to fulfil a dream

Netherlands coach Foppe de Haan praised his side's fighting spirit after they defeated Portugal 2-1 to become the first team to qualify for the semi-finals of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The hosts won thanks to a goal in each half from Ryan Babel, a penalty, and Maceo Rigters who made Portugal pay for failing to turn a majority of possession into clear chances. While Portugal coach José Couceiro - who was sent to the stands - said his side must still believe they can qualify from the section despite picking up just one point so far, De Haan was already turning his attention to the Beijing Olympics.

Foppe de Haan, Netherlands coach
We played as a team which is what we had to do. Ismaïl Aissati is out of the tournament with an injury so we have lost a lot of creativity but we worked really hard to compensate for that and showed great fighting spirit. At the start of the tournament if you had told me we would have six points after two matches I would have said you were crazy. When Henk Kesler [Director of the Royal Netherlands Football Association] told me in 2004 [when De Haan took charge] that we want to go to the Olympics I said, 'OK, let's do it', so we did it. In football you have to work with the material you have and that is what we have done. Portugal play good football and they have very good players but they didn't make many chances. We scored twice, they scored once - Portugal lost, and that's it. We have to thank Andries Jonker and Louis van Gaal for this success because they started the master plan and changed the way the youth system was organised which is much better now. The youth academies at the clubs have also improved a lot, we must compliment them, but also in the association the mindset is different. We talk much more with the clubs and we really want to win. My goal when I started out as coach of the U21s was to make the Olympics and we have done that.

José Couceiro, Portugal coach
It is the first time in my 31 years in football that I have been sent off. It is difficult to react to this. In the first half Portugal worked hard and had plenty of possession. The only mistake we made was not shooting enough. We did that in the second half but made one mistake and the Netherlands scored from it. The problem in the first half was that the forwards played too deep which meant we were too compact at the back so we had few options up front. We improved on that in the second half. It's now very difficult for us to qualify for the next phase and I just hope the match between the Netherlands and Belgium doesn't end in a goalless draw. I believe we can still reach the semi-finals and we have to believe we can get there. That's what I told the players after the match. We showed we have a great team with a lot of quality. I am very proud of this team.