Lennartsson joy as plan pays off

Sweden coach Jörgen Lennartsson was delighted his team's attacking game plan against Serbia reaped such rich, and early, dividends. However, the resulting 3-1 Swedish victory in Group A left Serbia coach Slobodan Krčmarević ruing a poor first half from his defenders.

Jörgen Lennartsson, Sweden coach
I am very proud of my players' performance – their attitude and mentality, in particular, which enabled them to go into the game and immediately take the initiative. We thought that the right way to play against Serbia was to attack with lots of players and also to defend correctly. That's what we did. The most important part of the game was when they made it 2-1 – it was absolutely crucial that we made it 3-1 straight away. All the players played well, but the way [left-back] Emil Johansson from Hammarby dealt with Zoran Tošić of Manchester United was really nice to see. We didn't feel that the game was over until with ten minutes to go, and we might think about the semi-final against England once we have had showers and something to eat.

I am happy we'll play it in Gothenburg because it's an excellent stadium and the people there have done a great job. We'll have two suspended players in Pontus Wernbloom and Emir Bajrami and that means we'll have to put two other players in. It's an interesting challenge but at least nobody is injured. Today was all a question of the mentality we took into the match – we showed confidence and a positive attitude – and scoring the first goal, which is really important to do against Serbia from the mental side of the game. We wanted to attack through speed and maybe score one or two goals, which we did.

Slobodan Krčmarević, Serbia coach
We are disappointed with the result and sorry also to be out of the competition. We were poor in the first half and their first goal was far too easy – it was their first chance and they scored from it. There were a few things that went on in the first half that affected my players mentally and we lost something from our game. But after they scored their second we found the strength to come back and we got a goal back, only to then concede another straight away. I am particularly disappointed with my defenders, especially because we had played two fantastic games against Italy and Belarus [keeping clean sheets].

I can't say too many good things about our defending. I also cannot say that all the decisions weren't good – of course we deserved a few cards. At half-time I had to change things, so sent on Milan Vilotić and pushed forward Gojko Kačar. We changed formation to 4-4-1, but after the second sending-off we lost our shape as it is almost impossible to play at a satisfactory level at that point. However, I was satisfied with the second half because my players saved their pride and finished the game with their dignity. We were playing a serious competition, against a strong host team, and it was necessary to make some decisions to keep us at a proper level.