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Löw takes heart from German success

Joachim Löw was delighted to kick off UEFA EURO 2008™ – his first tournament as Germany coach – with a victory and he admitted the 2-0 win against Poland in Klagenfurt had given him great personal satisfaction. By contrast, Leo Beenhakker spoke of the disappointment and depression in the Poland dressing room after his side's brush with a "top-quality" opponent in Group B.

Joachim Löw, Germany coach
Of course we are happy that we won the first game and we are happy with the performance. As a coach, you keep asking yourself where your team are at, right up until the big kick-off. For the three weeks until the tournament starts, you don't have the chance to measure yourself against anybody, but we played well. We had one main focus, which was to win our opening match, and we did that. I think the team proved their determination and their focus. In the first half we had a number of great moves and the game went very smoothly. We can be very happy with the result.

The whole side played very well, not just Lukas Podolski. He scored the two goals and we know that Lukas can perform well and can be a threat to any goalkeeper. At his best, he is a very dangerous player. At times we were also attacking from midfield, while Miroslav Klose and Mario Gómez both contributed to the goals. There were a couple of dangerous situations for us so I'm glad we managed to get the second goal. The atmosphere was good in the dressing room because all that pressure was gone. Everyone was happy.

Leo Beenhakker, Poland coach
You can imagine that we are very disappointed. We competed well and we tried to make it our match but it wasn't easy because we had a genuinely top-quality opponent, with players playing at their highest levels. I wasn't impressed with the second goal. The main thing, especially after half-time when you are losing 1-0, is to try to create a little bit more pressure from the midfield and up front. Automatically you start to play a little more open and then you can suffer the consequence of a second goal. Germany are still the world champions of counterattacking.

At least we tried to get a goal and we made some chances, but after their second goal it was over – that's for sure. We played more or less at the same level as them for 70 minutes, but the last 20 minutes were ones to forget. After the match, everybody was quite depressed by the result but, at the same time, we are still in the tournament. That's what it's all about, whether you are in the EURO or the World Cup, but we have only three or four days now to recover physicaly and mentally.

euro2008.uefa.com - Tournament - Matches

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Ballack: We Made Them Pay

German captain Michael Ballack believes that Poland were made to pay for allowing too much space.

Germany triumphed 2-0 in Klagenfurt thanks to two goals from Lukas Podolski, despite the fact that he was playing an unorthodox left midfield role.Skipper, Ballack was left pleased with his side’s showing.

“We were highly concentrated and made very few errors, and we should perhaps have scored one or two more goals” Ballack admitted.

"But then we allowed Poland too much possession. However, we hit them at just the right time. All in all, we deserved to win.

"Against Croatia the group can now be decided, and we want to go and win that game” he added.

Asked what he thought Podolski would be feeling after scoring against the country we was born, he said: "I cannot say. It is something you will have to ask him.

"However, what I know is he wants to win with us. But I guess this can have a special meaning."

Goal.com - Euro 2008 - Ballack: We Made Them Pay