Three Lions Captain Beckham had the chance to put England 2-0 up against the French in Lisbon and all but wrap up a famous victory. But his effort was dramatically saved by Barthez, diving spectacularly to his right.

It proved a crucial miss, because France went on to score two goals right at the death and win the match 2-1. But Neville believes that Beckham should not hand over penalty duty to someone else during Euro 2004.

"There's no need for that," he said. "That was a good penalty he took tonight. He smashed it right in the corner but Fabien has gone very early and made a great save. Obviously if he misses the target or scuffs it then people might question it. But the way he hit that penalty was like Zidane's, but Zidane's went in."

Neville was an inspirational figure at the end of the game, dragging his Three Lions teammates over to clap the supporters, consoling young Ledley King and then issuing a rallying cry to the rest of the troops.

And he also has a message for England's fans, whose support in Lisbon was truly outstanding.

He said: "We still believe we can come through. We will pick ourselves up. We have been hit and pushed back onto the ropes but we live to fight another day. If somebody asked me if this is one of the most disappointing things that's happened to me I would say it's not - because we have two more matches to put it right and reach a European Championship quarter-final.

"You can't explain what happened. We were enjoying that last 15 minutes, we were enjoying defending our lead and coming out on the counter-attack. We were enjoying all parts of the game.

"Sometimes you can't explain what happens in football and that last two minutes is one of those times. But I don't think it will affect the mood in the camp, there wont' be a problem. Obviously we're disappointed because we wanted to win, but that's it. We'll come back."

14 June 2004  
Tord Talks: Tord on Gary Neville