Bielsa resolute in defeat

June 9, 2002

Argentina's coach Marcelo Bielsa vowed that his team would put their defeat to England behind before their final group match against Sweden.

Argentina are now in third place in the group and the defeat has dented their hopes of qualifying for the second stage.

"We will need to focus on the task in front of us and try to put the sadness of this defeat behind us," said Bielsa.

"It was obviously a very important match. We did not get the three points we needed so it makes it difficult.

"This was a very tightly fought match. There were some opportunities on both sides and unfortunately we were unable to take advantage of some of the chances we had."

Bielsa insisted that his team deserved something from the game.

"We thought we could win, but the result we deserved and we didn't reach was a draw.

"There were two different halves.

"In the first, the match was close and even; our achievements were related to our skills and England's chances were more related to our mistakes than to their skills.

"In the second half, after the first 10 minutes, we created chances that made us think that we may draw the match."

Bielsa added that the half-time substitution of captain Juan Sebastian Veron was tactical and was not because the player was injured.

"It did not have anything to do with an injury. The inclusion of (Pablo) Aimar was due to footballing demands," Bielsa said.

Veron was naturally disappointed after the game.

"We had no precision in attack, (we needed) to be calmer with the ball, but these games are very intense," he said.

"We could have played more defensively but we went looking for the victory from the kick-off.

"Now we have to look ahead and defeat Sweden to advance to the quarter-finals."

Kily Gonzalez was also replaced with Claudio Lopez coming on in his place.

Lopez said: "We lost against the rival that we didn't want to lose to, but it's better to lose now and not in the future," he said.

"We didn't play well. If we play to our level, England are not better than us.

"England took advantage of the chance they had when no team was dominating the match.

"Now we have to forget this sadness and think of the future, which is much more important."

BBC Sport Online