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Tuesday, 20 June, 2000, 23:42 GMT 00:42 UK
Keegan refuses to make excuses
Kevin Keegan admitted his England side were simply not good enough after seeing them sent crashing out of Euro 2000 in a dramatic clash with Romania in Charleroi.
Keegan and his team had one foot in the quarter-finals, only to be baulked by a late Ioan Ganea penalty that saw Romania leapfrog England into a place in the last eight.
It left the coach sighing: "Of course I am devastated. We did not play well enough but with five minutes to go I thought we could hang on to something.
"We got into a position of being 2-1 up but we never played as well as we can. We have to ask if we can pass it better and control a game.
"The answer in this tournament is sadly no."
Keegan did reserve some praise for his battered players, who now need to lift themselves for a World Cup qualifying campaign.
"There was plenty of determination. If it was about endeavour and honesty we would have won the tournament," said Keegan.
"But you don't win it with honesty alone. We have spent three matches chasing a football. When we got it we gave it away.
"You get like a boxer taking so many punches. We were shipping so much water and never trusted each other enough with the ball."
Keegan, speaking on BBC 1, added: "We have World Cup qualifiers now and
because of Alan Shearer retiring there will be changes. We have to look at the
next mountain we have to climb.
"We have to believe in our ability to pass the ball. If you asked players who play in the Premiership to do certain jobs you expect them to do it.
"Now we have to go away and lick our wounds," added the England coach.
Romanian coach Emerich Jenei insisted the absence of suspended skipper Gheorghe Hagi had inspired, rather than deflated, his players.
"I thank my team because they were very confident and able to qualify," he
"Because Hagi was absent, they tried to make up for it.
"We showed today we are a good team. The penalty was not a penalty - it was a present," Jenei added.
Dorinel Munteanu, who scored Romania's equaliser, said the team deserved their victory due to of the amount of chances they created.
"We played well. We played to win and we got a lot of chances to do that," Munteanu said.
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