England striker Owen has been used to turning games in his team's favour, including famously The FA Cup Final of 2001 when he scored twice in the last eight minutes to allow Liverpool to come from behind and beat Arsenal.

But in Lisbon on Sunday night he was on the other end of the stick as France scored a free-kick and a penalty in injury time to beat England in a dramatic Euro 2004 opener.

Owen said: "I can hardly believe it, it's a very disappointing result. I've never been involved in such a cruel match before. We have done it to teams before with Liverpool and England but I've never been on the wrong end of it.

"I suppose it's how Arsenal must have felt when I scored those goals in The FA Cup Final, and how Bayern Munich felt when they lost that Champions League final to Manchester United. But I've never had to be in that position before and it' s not nice.

"We have to keep our heads up and take the positives out of the game - and there are plenty of them. I would prefer to lose the first game rather than any other and we are still in with a big shout.

"I wouldn't even say there are big lessons to be learned because in the end it was a bit of bad luck the way we lost and 99 times out of 100 it will never happen to you. You can't do much about a free-kick like that and then it was an individual mistake for the penalty.

"Everyone makes mistakes in games and we made certain mistakes and it was unfortunate. But overall the players come out with a great deal of credit and we have to remember that."

Owen was particularly impressed with the performances of Ledley King at centre-back and Wayne Rooney in attack, both of whom were making their debut in a major international tournament.

"Both Wayne and Ledley played really well and were unfortunate to be on the losing side in their first game in a finals," said Owen. "Wayne was very strong and I thought came out with a lot of credit."

As for Owen, he was substituted in the second half in what he admits was a frustrating night for him. But he has promised to come back strongly against Switzerland on Thursday.

"I'm always disappointed to come off, I don't enjoy it. But the manager made that decision and I respect it. Everyone was tired and if the manager could have used even more substitutions he would have done, it was that kind of game. But I'll bounce back."