By Karolos Grohmann
BERLIN (Reuters) -Following is reaction after Austria beat Poland 3-1 on Friday in their the Euro 2024 Group D at Berlin’s Olympiastadion.
Austria scorer and man-of-the-match Christoph Baumgartner: “The first half was not as we had expected it. But overall very positive. We were not that pushy after the 20th minute. The whole nation deserved it and we are happy to have won it.
“Everybody is extremely happy. There was a lot of pressure on us and we couldn’t really have an afternoon nap yesterday because we were so stressed. We’re really relieved but we know this is only the start and there are big challenges ahead.”
“We won against Germany in the run-up to the tournament and had a really good period and people started to think big quite quickly, but we always had a sensible view of our situation. We know how good we are. It would have been a big shame if we had lost today.
“There was a danger that we would lose a grip on the match. We started to lose the ball too easily and you cannot allow that to happen. But we all know we can trust each other. The coach encouraged us at halftime and we gave it our all out on the pitch.”
Ralf Rangnick, Austria coach: “The first 20 minutes were maybe perfect for us. We should have led by more than 1-0, and then we kind of lost our way and started losing the ball. That’s why we had to make a few changes in the second half, and once we did we took full control.”
“3:1! I congratulate the Austrian national team and their coach. The entire country is happy with this wonderful game,” said Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.
Przemyslaw Frankowski, Poland midfielder: “We knew how important this game was. We were interested only in victory. Now we feel very disappointed. We were prepared well for Austria on paper, but paper and reality is sometimes very different.
“Of course, you can say that from such tournaments you can still take something positive, like experience and so on as we have lot of young players. But as for today, I don’t even want to look for positives as we simply lost an important game.”
(Reporting by Karolos GrohmannEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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