Penalty forced us to change - Veron

Argentina midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron claimed the penalty converted by Manchester United team-mate David Beckham had forced the South Americans to revise their game plan during the 1-0 defeat by England...

‘‘We knew that if they scored against us, everything would be much tougher, and that’s what happened.’’ he said.

‘‘England played as they wanted - with counter-attacks and long balls to (Emile) Heskey and (Michael) Owen. We didn’t have space to play and that made things hard for us.’’

Veron, who was replaced at half-time, admitted Argentina’s formidable strike force had succumbed to pressure.

‘‘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.’’

Nevertheless, Veron insisted all was not lost.

‘‘Now we have to look ahead and defeat Sweden to advance to the quarter-finals. We have to analyse what we did to avoid repeating the (same) mistakes,’’ he added.

Kily Gonzalez struggled to salvage something positive from today’s defeat.

‘‘We have to be happy for the team’s attitude, but we know we didn’t play a good match,’’ he said.

‘‘It may hurt a bit more, but during the World Cup you will face a lot of teams with history in matches that you don’t want to lose.

‘‘For us it was just one more rival, knowing that a victory would have qualified us.

‘‘The defeat hurts and it will keep hurting. But tomorrow we have to forget about it and show what we can do against Sweden. We had two chances, now we have one left.’’

‘‘(Coach Marcelo) Bielsa told us that we made a lot of mistakes, but that we have to be calm.’’

Gonzalez was replaced during the second half by Claudio Lopez, who admitted that losing to England was tough to take.

‘‘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.’’