Gerrard's unfortunate back-pass in the very last seconds of the game against France allowed Thierry Henry to race through into the box where he was brought down by goalkeeper David James.

It was a clear penalty and Zinedine Zidane fired it home to give Les Bleus a dramatic and, for England, heart-breaking victory.

It was an especially difficult moment for Gerrard, who had been outstanding all night and played a major part in helping the Three Lions into a 1-0 first-half lead.

But thankfully he was not booed or jeered by the thousands of England fans who gave their team an incredible backing all night and realised the contribution the Liverpool man had made to the cause.

Gerrard said: "The fans were great and that's because they know that we deserved to win the game. They know there were 14 magnificent performances out there and we deserved to beat France.

"I didn't see Thierry and I gave a bad pass, but these things happen in football and I will bounce back. I can promise the fans I will make up for it and I'm glad it happened in the first game and so I have a chance to do that.

"We're not out of the tournament. People have made mistakes before today and cost the country dear in big tournaments. But hopefully I have only cost us one game and I will bounce back. We are all rallying round each other because we all win together and we all lose together."

Gerrard believes that, despite defeat, England showed they are a match for the world's best teams with their performance against France. And he is hoping to play Zidane and Co again very, very soon.

"France haven't won the tournament yet," he said. "They have got three points but hopefully we will meet them in the final and get revenge.

"It makes our game against Switzerland on Thursday even bigger. We can't afford to be down, we have to keep going. There are a few players, including me, who made individual errors but we will bounce back. It's a clean slate in the morning and we'll take it from there.

"Everything was going to plan until the end. The French had a lot of the ball around the centre-circle, but we had planned for that and we had done the job. But then a couple of errors and it costs you.

"Hopefully that's all our bad luck out the way in one go. There's a lot of positives we can take from the match because we've been the better team over 90 minutes against the best team in the world."

13 June 2004  
Steven Gerrard post-match AUDIO