sigurdsson revels in iceland's 'perfect night' published: tuesday 14 october 2014, 0.57cet gylfi sigurdsson hailed a "perfect night" for iceland after his double earned victory over the netherlands, who must be "very critical of ourselves" says arjen robben.
by stefán stefánsson from laugardalsvöllur
• gylfi sigurdsson hails a "perfect night" for iceland in group a • heimir hallgrímssonsays netherlands are "world class" • arjen robben calls on oranje to be self-critical • kolbeinn sigthórsson pleased with all-round display • next games: czech republic v iceland, netherlands v latvia (16 november)
gylfi sigurdsson, iceland midfielder a fantastic result. we knew we were going to be chasing the game a lot and that holland would be keeping possession more than us, but we worked hard and our plan worked perfectly: defend and hit them on the counterattack. we knew how good they are – especially with [arjen] robben and [robin] van persie up front – but the way the coaches set us up worked perfectly.
they put two up front at half-time, which showed how well we were defending. they started playing a few more longer balls in the final 25 minutes, but our centre-halves dealt with it. it was a perfect night, but there's a long way to go and we are going to have to pick up points wherever we go.
kolbeinn sigthórsson, iceland forward a fantastic result for us. we played great defensively and were also dangerous when attacking. we let holland have the ball to start with and then closed them down whenever they tried to get between our lines. i will head back to holland [to afc ajax] feeling better than my dutch team-mates. we have scored eight goals and conceded none in three games, which is great for us. hopefully we can keep this up.
heimir hallgrímsson, iceland joint coach this is a world-class team we have beaten. first and foremost, it was a really solid team performance. i think our defensive display was the key to winning. they knew what to do and stayed focused. we had planned how to defend against them and it worked.
we still have to focus on our next game against the czech republic. obviously we will try to win there, though a draw would be a really good start for us as we have nine points already and i am pleased with that. we are delighted because we said before that nine points [from our first three games] would be good.
arjen robben, netherlands forward very disappointing. it was a difficult loss because now we have to chase two teams. we needed to win this game and it is frustrating the way we gave it away. of course it was difficult for us, but we need to be very critical of ourselves because we gave away the two goals as presents. after that it became even harder because they defended and looked to counterattack.
