Captain of Italy, Chiara Tiddi: “It has been a good experience to play in a big tournament like this. Our players need to continue to have good, positive performances and take all we have learnt into our development.”
Helen Richardson-Walsh: “It is great that we’ve qualified for the semi finals. That’s a weight off our shoulders. We want to try and win the pool, so we need to beat Germany to do that. It is always a close game, they try and stretch us in different ways so we need to look at those things.
Head coach to Germany women Jamilon Mulders: “We took the first step and are in the semi-finals. The progress is visible with this team. Two wins out of two, and they have been fairly comfortable wins. It’s not important to finish top of the group. It’s only important that we are through to the semi-finals.”
Head coach to Spain women Adrian Locke: “I’m a little bit disappointed with the defensive aspect, (after losing 8-1 to the Netherlands). We had the chance to measure up against the world number ones, and saw that we are a mile off.”
Nikolay Yankun, captain of Russia men: “There are no easy games here. All the teams are high class, and all the games are tough. But we try to improve every game and try new things. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Pau Quemada ahead of Spain’s must-win game against England: “These are the the games that you train for. We knew at the beginning of the tournament that we would arrive at the last game against England with all to play for. This is our chance to get a ticket to the semi-final. For the moment it seems that we are on the way. We have been training together for a year to get to these games.”
Niklas Wellen, speaking about Germany’s opening game against Belgium: “Yeah, I think when you beat Belgium in the first game 4-0 you definitely make a statement. Our goal is to reach the semi-finals and there everyone can beat everyone in the semi-finals and then we’ll see.”
– See more at: http://eurohockey2015.co.uk/they-said-it-words-of-wisdom-as-the-tournament-reaches-half-way-point/#sthash.Pakj9UfK.dpuf