Scholes doubt for Switzerland

"It wasn't a party as you can imagine," he said. "David was in the dressing room on his own and the rest of the players were on the bus. I said to him that he and the coaches were important from this morning. We have to build it up again."

Eriksson said he hadn't thought about the possibility of asking someone other than Beckham to take the penalties after the England captain saw his spot-kick saved by Fabien Barthez.

"I haven't thought about it," said Eriksson. "If he feels he doesn't want to take another one then we will change it but I still think he is the best."

Asked if he had discussed Beckham's missed penalty and Steven Gerrard's back pass that led to Zinedine Zidane's penalty winner with them, an indignant Eriksson replied: "What do you say to Gerrard? 'Don't play the ball to the keeper?' He didn't see Thierry Henry. He's human and it happens in football. What do you say to Beckham? 'Put the penalty in the other corner?'

"I think if it is tactical things that have gone wrong then you talk about it. What happened last night, I don't think you talk about that. It happens, unfortunately."

Eriksson praised his players for the way they played having led 1-0 up until the 91st minute.

"They did exactly what we asked them to do," he said. "Knowing the English mentality they will all be looking forward to Thursday. In fact they would like to play again today. It was difficult to understand. It was a game like Bayern Munich v Manchester United or maybe Italy against France in Euro 2000.

"We played a fantastic game besides the last three minutes. If we perform the same way, I think we will win through and have a very good tournament."

Eriksson was asked if he regretted the substitutions - taking off Michael Owen, Scholes and Wayne Rooney - but said: "I don't regret any of them, In the last 10 minutes we took over the game and it seemed as though France ran out of ideas. It happens in football. Life goes on.

"We will have a meeting and I will speak only about the match for two minutes. The rest of the time I will talk about the future. It is not like this was the last game.

"We still have a lot of games in front of us. Tactically, I have nothing to say to the players other than congratulations on the performance."