Argentina-England – G. Hoddle: “The players gave everything they had, the whole team played really well”

“Tonight’s result is disappointing for ENGLAND. We knew that the match against ARGENTINA would be tough but we were hoping that it would be our night. We can’t put all the blame on David BECKHAM (7); we handled ourselves very well without him. The players gave everything they had, the whole team played really well. The whole country can be very proud of their performance. With eleven against eleven, the match would have been quite different. After equalising, my players’ football got much better. You can’t force someone to take a penalty; I asked David BATTY (8) if he wanted to take it and he accepted. Losing is very hard to take, but we have to look to the future. We have some lessons to learn from this match, as we had some problems with our concentration. It’s a very strange emotion to end with, losing on penalties. To lose like this is always very hard. We wish ARGENTINA good luck for the rest of the tournament.”