Rooney's red card and penalty misses cost England

GELSENKIRCHEN, July 2: Sad England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson blamed Wayne Rooney's red card and poor penalty-taking for their World Cup quarter-final exit by Portugal.

Rooney was sent off after appearing to stamp on Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho in the 62nd minute and although England battled to a 0-0 draw after extra time, they went down 3-1 on penalties last night.

''I think there were two things,'' said Eriksson after his last game in charge of England.

''Everything went according to our plan -- at the beginning of the second half we took over and started to control the game very well and create chances.

''And hopefully that would have gone on with 11 men....

Unfortunately we couldn't have that plan anymore.

''Then once again penalties. That's the second reason why we're not in the tournament anymore.

''We missed three out of four penalties. Of course, it's not good enough.'' Eriksson put the spot-kick errors down to tiredness, though defender Jamie Carragher was a late substitute, after battling away for nearly an hour with 10 men.

''They were tired but they showed a lot of character,'' he said.

''We held the play up, created chances, played 30 minutes extra time and it was very equal there.

''So I think they did everything they could. But we paid for it in the penalty shootouts.''

Eriksson would not be drawn on Rooney's red card incident, saying he would have a better idea today.

But he added: ''I don't think we can complain about that red card.'' Eriksson's five and a half year spell in charge ended with England's exit as he makes way for his assistant Steve McClaren. It was not the way the Swede wanted it to end.

''To get over this result will take a long time because I was convinced we had a team who could reach the final. I still say that. But we're out unfortunately.

''I'm sorry for the team, for the squad, for the fans. Really sorry,'' he told a news conference. ''With all the fans we had out there we deserved to have a team out there in the final or semi-final.

''I feel sad, a bit angry, because we should be in the tournament.'' Looking back at England's quarter-final exits at the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004, he said. ''Four years ago, we reached the quarter-finals and that was a good result -- and even two years ago.

But this time it's not good enough.

''We had to play at least the semi-final, if not the final, because the quality of the squad is that good.''

REUTERS

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