Milla pays tribute to patient Spain

Spain coach Luis Milla paid tribute to his impact substitutes after wide men Diego Capel and Jeffren Suárez came off the bench to engineer a 3-1 comeback victory against Belarus in the Viborg semi-final.

Jeffren and Capel provided crosses for Adrián López goals either side of the 90-minute mark as Spain prevailed after extra time. Given that the first of Adrián's two strikes arrived in the 89th minute, Belarus coach Georgi Kondratyev lamented the late loss of concentration that had denied his team a famous win.

Luis Milla, Spain coach
We achieved our first two objectives tonight – qualifying for the Olympics and reaching the final – and now we will fight for the title. I was lucky enough to play the game and I know that you have to keep going until the very end. If you keep fighting, that faith is sometimes rewarded. The game is never over until the final whistle, and so it proved.

We had a lot of players across the middle of the pitch, and we were playing well without really hurting them. So I brought on Diego Capel and Jeffren Suárez to get us behind them and playing in more dangerous areas. We got there eventually and I think it was the right result.

I have said all along that the boys on the bench have been great in their attitude – although they haven't been playing, they've been ready to come on and make an impact. I made the changes because I thought they would help us, because the substitutes were confident boys. You could then see the spirit and togetherness in the squad when the other substitutes came off the bench to celebrate the second goal with their team-mates.

Georgi Kondratyev, Belarus coach
We did everything we could in this match. We were almost there – it was just a matter of a couple of minutes. Unfortunately we didn't manage to hold on in the end, but I'm still proud of my players. I cannot blame them for anything because today we played against very difficult opponents. Our players play in the domestic championship while the Spaniards play in the Spanish top flight, and that's a huge difference.

My players stuck to our game plan perfectly. We know the Spanish team and their style of play. We were ready for them. Obviously, against a side like Spain, you can't just go out to play attacking football, so our first priority was defence. The plan worked fine for us for 89 minutes, but then we conceded that last-minute goal.

We just lacked concentration in the end. First we let their winger run down to the byline and then we allowed their striker to apply a finishing touch. That's just a matter of concentration.