Vilda salutes Spanish victory

Spain coach Jorge Vilda was delighted at his charges' display in their convincing 3-0 defeat of the Netherlands in Tuesday's UEFA European Women's Under-17 Championship semi-final in Nyon – and told UEFA.com that he hopes Saturday's decider will be "second time lucky" for his impressive team.

Goals from captain Amanda Sampedro, Raquel Pinel and Paloma Lazaro sent Spain into their second straight final on Saturday, where they will meet the Republic of Ireland, conquerors of the team that defeated them 7-0 in last season's showpiece – Germany. The win also booked a FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup berth, for which the Netherlands will aim in the third-place play-off, coach Maria van Kortenhof conceding their opponents were "stronger in all areas".

Jorge Vilda, Spain coach
The team really delivered for us today. They didn't just play very well, they also qualified for both the final on Saturday and the World Cup. We have achieved our first goal, now we will play in our second UEFA European Championship final and try, once again, to win that trophy. It was a difficult game for us today, but what we did well was to press them and give them as little possession as possible – which is a platform for winning any game. I thought the midfield looked good, our combination play was impressive, and we created plenty of goalscoring opportunities. We saw a strong Spain performance certainly, but there is always room for improvement and that's what we will be aiming for on Saturday.

Amanda Sampredo, Spain captain
It is always a great feeling to score but to get the opening goal in a tournament like this, and to set your team on their way to victory in the process, makes it even better. I'd have to say that we played very well in the semi-final, but as a team you are always striving to do better and we'll be trying to take our performance up a level in the final.

Maria van Kortenhof, Netherlands coach
I think that Spain were a lot stronger than us in all areas today, we were found wanting. Defensively we had difficulties in holding our shape. It's true that the second goal killed our hopes, but we created few openings ourselves to be able to pull level. Now we will try and lift ourselves for the third-place game.