Shared pain for Spain and Finland

Spain coach Juan Ramón López Caro admitted to feeling "a bit sad and disillusioned" after his side were eliminated despite a 2-0 Group B victory over a Finland side already consigned to an early exit. It was too little too late as Germany and England progressed at the Iberians' expense though López Caro – like Finnish counterpart Markku Kanerva – felt his side could depart with pride intact.

Juan Ramón López Caro, Spain coach
We showed our superiority tonight. We created a lot of chances, dominated both in attack and in defence. It was an impressive performance. We're a bit sad and disillusioned but football doesn't always give you what you deserve and what you expect. We were a bit unlucky in the small details in tough matches and this is why we're going home. We have clearly shown and demonstrated our own style, shown plenty of initiative and attacked a lot. There's no doubt we can play in such a style but against England and Germany they took advantage of our focus on attack – when we made mistakes they capitalised.

I've seen the matches from the other group – there are strong teams here with different styles. It is likely to be something else, the team that minimises the mistakes, that makes the difference for the side that makes it in the end. But even for that team it will be very complicated.

Markku Kanerva, Finland coach
I am feeling empty, as do the players. We came here with high hopes because we believed we could really present a challenge to some top teams. From now on we need to focus on the little things, like defending set-pieces. Usually we defend well at set-pieces but today, and in this tournament, we've found ourselves up against players from the Liga, Bundesliga and Premier League and their individual skill levels are quite high. We should not give away so many easy free-kicks – today was a prime example of why.

In the first game we were there with thousands of Finnish fans, we realised that we were in a big tournament. After the game we were disappointed and that feeling remains but we have shown that we aren't lacking at this level. This will bring some confidence for Finnish football – we're on the right track – and hopefully as many players from this team as possible will go on to play for the senior national team. Hopefully that won't be too far away.