We can be World Cup winners - Terry

John Terry has revealed the determination in the England dressing room to bounce back from their Euro 2004 penalty shoot-out despair and claimed: “We are capable of winning the next World Cup.”

It was the same old story as England’s spot-kick hoodoo struck again with Portugal edging them out 6-5 in a stirring quarter-final at the Estadio da Luz which had ended 2-2 after extra-time.

But, although there was great disappointment in the England camp afterwards, Terry admitted that thoughts turned almost instantly among players to the World Cup in Germany in two years.

Terry said: “For me my first major tournament was a great experience and I am hoping I can be part of the World Cup qualifiers coming up.

“It is very disappointing for me but I’ve got youth on my side and I want to come back and win a major trophy for my country.

“That’s the ambition of everyone in that dressing room. We want to win the World Cup – and we are capable of doing that.

“That was what we all said in the dressing room after the game. This tournament has brought everyone closer together and let’s just wait and see what happens now.

“This tournament was there for the taking,. The only side we really feared was France and we played really well against them for 89 minutes. We are not there for the semi-finals and the finale and we are gutted.

“But afterwards it was all positive, that we can now go on and move on from this, learn from the experience and hopefully go and win the World Cup. The younger players will benefit from this experience in the long term.”

One of the big plus points of the tournament was the form of midfielder Frank Lampard who until a fortnight beforehand had looked set to lose out to Nicky Butt as part of the central quartet.

But Sven-Goran Eriksson’s faith in the Chelsea player was justified as he scored three goals in four games.

That was small consolation, however, for Lampard as he reflected on another competition slipping from England’s grasp when all the portents seemed to be in their favour.

He said: “I have really enjoyed playing in there and having Steven Gerrard next to me has been superb. That made it easier for me although the more you play at this level, the more confident you get.

“But it will take a long time to get over this. We don’t want to be go away on our holidays now. We wanted to stay here for the rest of the tournament and now we’re not here.

“We have to take stock, we all have to recover and we’ve all got big seasons ahead of us next year.

“Yes, we do seem unlucky in these situations – but how many times are you going to be unlucky?

“That’s the unfortunate thing. We thought this year we could make it happen. We had bad luck but you can’t go on about bad luck. We’re out and that’s it.”

Striker Michael Owen echoed Lampard’s sentiments about England surrendering a golden opportunity to add to their 1966 World Cup triumph.

He said: “In every tournament there are five or six teams who are very good and definitely have a good chance – and we definitely believed we were one of them.

“It’s just annoying that we can’t progress. You don’t have too many opportunities. They come every two years but we’ve got a young enough side to look forward to the next World Cup. We’ve played really well in this tournament.”