Spain midfielder Xabi Alonso insisted helping his team reach the semi-finals of Euro 2012 was more important than winning his 100th cap after scoring twice last night to knock out France. The former Liverpool man played a big part in ensuring the defending champions overcame Les Bleus 2-0 with a first-half header and a late penalty in Donetsk. <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2012/jun/xa.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 290px; " /> Glorious: Spain&rsquo;s Xabi Alonso (right) heads the ball into the back of the netu00a0(19th minute). PICS/Getty Images u00a0 Spain will now meet Portugal in the semi-finals on Wednesday. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re through to the semi-finals, which was the main thing,&rdquo; the Real Madrid player told uefa.com. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re pleased about that. The 100 caps is just an extra. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s in these matches that we have to show what we&rsquo;re about. We controlled it from start to finish. The team made things easy. <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2012/jun/xa2.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 238px; " /> Composed: Alonso converts a penalty kick to double Spain&rsquo;s lead (90th minute). &ldquo;I was happy about my 100th game and the goals. We know every game is difficult now but we&rsquo;re in the semi-finals and we&rsquo;re going to give it everything. &ldquo;We controlled the match, though we knew it wouldn&rsquo;t be easy against opponents that were defending deep. &ldquo;It became easier after the goal. It was a big quarter-final game and you have to know how to play them.&rdquo; Blanc stands by France&rsquo;s defensive tactics France coach Laurent Blanc stood by his tactical choices during Saturday&rsquo;s Euro 2012 quarter-final 2-0 loss to defending champions Spain. Blanc introduced a fresh tactical formula, with a five-man midfield deployed in a bid to stifle the reigning world and European champions. He added: &ldquo;In my belief, they are better than us. But my regrets are about conceding in the first half. Even though they dominated the match, I think they feared us a bit, particularly in attack.&rdquo;

Spanish centurion Xabi Alonso hails defending champions' dominance in comfortable quarter-final triumph

We dominated France: Xabi Alonso says after 2-0 win

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Home / Sports / Cricket / Article / We dominated France: Xabi Alonso says after 2-0 win

We dominated France: Xabi Alonso says after 2-0 win

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