SPAIN-UKRAINE: Coaches' Quotes

14 June 2006

Luis ARAGONES (ESP)

There is a tremendous amount of quality in our midfield and we’re very strong physically too. The fact is we dominated as soon as we got possession, and their heads went down when we scored the second.

That said, we were a little slack at the back once or twice and could have conceded a couple of goals. I wasn’t happy with that because it’s very important to keep a clean sheet at the World Cup. I didn’t expect such a convincing result, and I honestly thought they’d make it tougher for us. I have to say, though, we were a little lucky scoring from a corner and then a free-kick, and that hit them very hard psychologically.

We’ve got some very talented players and we’ve made an excellent start.

Oleg BLOKHIN (UKR)
I’m extremely disappointed. We weren’t disciplined at all and the players failed to follow the instructions the coaching team gave them. We’ll have to analyse our mistakes very closely and lift the players for next game. We’ll also need to rebuild the defence completely. After all, though, this is our very first World Cup finals and we need to pick up some experience.

I’m not so much disappointed about the result as the attitude of the players. It’s embarrassing for all of us and I want to apologise to the Ukraine fans for the performance we put in. We can’t play like that again. We just crumbled.

Spain played a very complete game, they were solid and fully deserved to win. Xabi Alonso also had a terrific game. Sadly, we’ve been the worst European team in the competition so far.