Meinert delight at Germany's winning start

Germany coach Maren Meinart was relieved that her side got their 2010/11 UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship campaign off to a winning start with a 3-1 triumph against Norway, while her opposite number Jarl Torske was disappointed by his side's inability to stop their opponents' attacks at source.

Maren Meinert, Germany coach
We are very pleased with the result because we don't like playing Norway, their style does not suit our game, but I was particularly pleased with our first-half performance. It's always important to start the tournament with a win so I'm really proud. We had more success at scoring today because we played at a high level and had more shots on goal than usual.

This is a much tougher group. Spain were the Under-17 champions [last year] so the next two matches will be very close. But to start off with a win has given us more confidence, so when we play Spain in three days it will be an exciting game and the fact that we have three points will help.

Jarl Torske, Norway coach
Germany deserved to win and although we almost equalised five minutes from the end, they were the better team. We wanted to put pressure on them high up the pitch to stop them building from the back but they were so good in possession we were unable to press them in their half. We wanted to press high and low, play more through the midfield and hit them on the counterattack but we were not precise enough and lost the ball too easily, partly because Germany are a good team.

Our goal came from a lovely move and we said at half-time we must dare to play more because we kept hitting too many aimless long balls but it was good to see the skill which led to that goal. We had some spells of good attacking also in the second half which could have come off, but all in all it was a disappointing performance from us against a strong side.