These are my first programme notes since our game in Istanbul. And what a game it was. Before the match I said that I was pretty sure that it wouldn't finish goalless. I was delighted to be proved wrong!

The funny thing was, it wasn't really a 0-0 game. We had some excellent opportunities to score including a penalty and Paul Scholes' chance soon afterwards. At that stage I was beginning to wonder if it was going to be one of those days. But thankfully it turned out to be an occasion when 0-0 was a marvellous result.

I think we handled the pressure very well. Perhaps it weighed heavier on Turkey than on us in the end. It makes a big difference to how you feel knowing that you have to win a game and that was the position that Turkey were in.

They were very confident in all the pre-match talk but there's no doubt that they were playing under pressure, which built further as every minute passed.

Obviously the way we played also made things difficult for them. We didn't do anything that different for the game but I did emphasise the necessity for us to keep our heads - whatever happened.

In football, the moment you lose your patience, focus and tactics you have absolutely no chance at all. I think the players did very well in that respect. Even at half-time when the players needed a couple of minutes to regain their calm, I repeated this message and everyone was soon focused again.

People have asked me if there's something about the English spirit that helps us to get the right result when it most matters. While I can only speak for the two final qualifiers since I have been in charge, which were Greece and Turkey, for me the answer is a simple one: we have a very good team.

It is also a team that is even better when it's under pressure. We get even more focused and concentrated. We say to ourselves 'yes it might be Germany, Argentina, Turkey, or whoever, but we can still beat them.'

The only competitive game that we have failed in during my time has been Brazil and that, at least partly, was due to the fact we had so little left in the tank for the second half.

We have turned that around completely in these Euro 2004 qualifiers and have finished strongly in every game. That's very good and shows mental strength too. It's much better to finish stronger than to start stronger!

The important thing now is to keep it going and use those World Cup experiences when we go to Portugal.

A lot will depend on how many games and injuries the players have had during the course of the season.

If I could play Euro 2004 now, it would be excellent!

Onto today's opponents - Denmark. They are a well-organised side. Are there any teams in world football these days who aren't well organised?

Of course we met in the World Cup on a night when everything went right for us and everything went wrong for them, particularly in the first half.

They have a lot of players playing in different countries around Europe which is a good guide to the strength that they have.

Jon-Dahl Tomasson and Jesper Gronkjaer are probably two of their main threats. Tomasson is strong and good on the ball but his main strength is undoubtedly scoring goals while Gronkjaer has incredible speed and, on his day, is a major threat.

For us in Sweden, we always referred to Denmark as the Latin footballing nation of Scandinavia. They tend to more attacking, better on the ball and have more pacey players than the other Nordic countries. It should be an entertaining afternoon.

Thank you very much for your continued support, and for listening to our appeal not to travel to Turkey last month.

Enjoy the game.

Sven-Göran Eriksson

Remember - There will be live minute-by-minute coverage of this afternoon's big match here on TheFA.com