England skipper David Beckham held his hands up after missing a penalty in a heartbreaking 2-1 defeat by France in their Euro 2004 Group B opener on Sunday.
"If I'd scored the penalty we'd have won," a shattered Beckham told ITV. "I have to hold my hands up to that. All credit to (France goalkeeper) Fabien (Barthez). I couldn't have hit it any better but he read me and made a good save."
Beckham's penalty miss came when England led 1-0 and France then replied with two goals in stoppage time by captain Zinedine Zidane to steal an unlikely victory.
Beckham said defeat was cruel on his team mates after they had contained a largely-disappointing French side.
"We've not deserved that. We were the better side for 80 or 90 minutes, we've performed really well.
"Sometimes you get the run of the ball and we didn't get it in the last few minutes, but that's football.
"We have to take a lot from the game and for 89 minutes minutes we played well. We (have to) take that into our next game, it is important we get ourselves up for the next game."
