The England coach has seen his side lose in agonising fashion at the Quarter Final stage in the World Cup to Brazil two years ago and now the European Championships to the hosts.

But Eriksson is delighted with the performances from his team, which so impressed in the 3-0 and 4-2 wins over Switzerland and Croatia respectively.

And the Swede has backed his squad to bounce back from the disappointment in Portugal and launch a strong campaign for the World Cup in 2006.

He said: "To overcome this will take more than 12 hours because it's always hard to lose important games.

"I think we did justice to ourselves in the tournament and lost on penalties after extra time. I think the players should be proud of themselves and I hope the fans are proud of them.

"If I was to pick the squad for the World Cup qualifiers tomorrow, I would pick the same squad, with maybe Rio Ferdinand coming back and perhaps a few others.

"In two years time I hope we have more players like Wayne Rooney who will come through in defence, midfield and attack.

"I believe the players and squad did what they had to do, but we did not quite do enough to win and I'm sorry for that.

"All players did an extremely good job. In three and a half years we have lost three competitive games.

"The difference between winning and losing is very small. All three games have been lost in a very strange way, but it gives me hope for the future.

"We are close to winning a major tournament and we have shown that. We just need a bit more luck on our side."

Eriksson insists he is standing by captain David Beckham after he came in for criticism for his displays during the tournament.

It was Beckham who missed the first penalty in the 6-5 shoot-out defeat and it was his third consecutive miss from the spot for his country.

But Eriksson added: "David is still very ambitious and I have no doubts he will carry on as captain.

"If there was another penalty shoot-out he would be the first to take one again. He was very unlucky because his left foot slipped as he went to score and the ball popped up and it went up there."

To listen to the full press conference with Sven, click on one of the links below
25 June 2004
Sven Press Conference - AUDIO

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