ENGLAND-TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Coaches' Quotes

ENGLAND-TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Coaches' Quotes

15 June 2006

Sven-Goran ERIKSSON (ENG)
We had a lot of chances in the first 80 minutes and we were unlucky not to take them. Trinidad and Tobago defended with eight, nine or ten men behind the ball and made things very difficult for us. They showed great discipline and great strength, but we showed great patience too. We fully deserved the win. Both goals that we scored were excellent.

I have to say too, that although he didn't score, I was delighted to see Wayne Rooney on the pitch. I am very happy that he is fit. Of course, he is not 100 per cent in form, but he hasn't played football for six weeks, so how can he be? This 30 minutes will have been very important for him and I hope to see him getting stronger in each game that we play.

We must now immediately begin our preparations for the game against Sweden. We haven't beaten them for a long time, so it would be nice to do it in Cologne.

Leo BEENHAKKER (TRI)
I am proud of the effort of my players today, but of course we are disappointed. They played with a lot of courage and a lot of passion. That's the only way we can play. Before the match we knew that we could organise the players to frustrate England for a long period of the game and we did that to good effect.

It was very hard to see the first goal go in. As the minutes tick by and the game goes on, your hopes build and you get more and more excited. Our heads dropped after that and I wasn’t surprised to see England score the second.

I thought that England lost patience at times. They had possibilities to score goals and although we found it tough to survive, they began hitting long balls. However, they dominated the match and deserved to win. I wish them luck for the rest of the competition.