Cole has revealed how the entire squad huddled together in the dressing room after last night's 2-1 set-back and vowed to come out fighting.

The players wanted to stick together in adversity after conceding a free-kick and a penalty in the last seconds of a match in which they led through a Frank Lampard goal after 37 minutes.

To have victory snatched away in such heart-rending fashion was difficult for everyone involved in the England set-up to take. But the magic of Zinedine Zidane meant the Three Lions went from potentially being top of the Group B table to being bottom in the space of two minutes.

Not surprisingly there was an air of frustration as the players trooped off the pitch. But Cole believes there will be no sign of depression when the Three Lions take on Switzerland in their second match of the tournament on Thursday.

He said: "We have to keep our heads up. We can't let people get down and disappointed because although we lost we played well enough to win. It was a great bit of magic from Zidane at the end but you can't do much about that. We just have to keep going.

"We got around each other in the dressing room afterwards and just said we had to get our heads up and take the positives into the next match. We have to play like that again against Switzerland and we will be OK."

Cole admits that France's two late goals, both from Zidane, left the England players stunned and hurt, especially as David Beckham had earlier been handed a chance to put the Three Lions 2-0 up when Wayne Rooney won a penalty.

Beckham was denied by a fabulous save from former Manchester United colleague Fabien Barthez, but there was no question of any blame being layed at the door of England's Captain.

Cole said: "These things happen. And anyway, I don't think David Beckham's penalty miss was the turning point in the game, the injury time was what killed us. We had worked well as a team and we were just unlucky.

"There is nothing for us to be ashamed of because we believe we should have won the game. The performance was very good and we defended well as a team.

"The fans were unbelievable as well and we were just sorry we couldn't get the result we wanted for them. We went over to thank them at the end and hopefully they can get behind us in the next game against Switzerland and we can give them something to cheer about.

"It's definitely possible to qualify for the quarter-finals still. If we play like that again we can beat anyone. And I can promise you it won't be difficult to lift the players. We all said we have lost one game but we have two more ahead of us to win and we believe we can do it."