Sven-Goran Eriksson admitted the best team won after watching his England team slide out of the World Cup at the hands of Brazil.

“I think we maybe could have done better today. It was a great pity,” he said.

Despite Michael Owen putting England ahead after 23 minutes, Brazil controlled the game, levelling the scores on the stroke of half-time, before going ahead courtesy of a Ronaldino free-kick. Despite being reduced to ten men when Ronaldinho was sent-off, Brazil controlled the game.

“I think we had a very good opportunity to reach the semi-final,’ added Eriksson. ‘We didn’t take it.

“We did well in the first half until injury time. We did what we should do, play good football, defend very well, attack quickly. They scored in the last minute of the first half and then they scored at the beginning of the second half.

“I think we should have done better with 11 men against 10. We did not use the ball very much. We lost and congratulations to Brazil. They are a very good team. I hope they reach the final and win it.”

“We couldn’t the keep ball and they had seven or eight players around and kept the ball. They are better than us at keeping the ball, I think that was the difference.”

“We seemed tired and lost shape and at the end we lobbed in balls to their three centre backs instead of having more patience and playing the ball up front.

“We were losing 2-1 and we were chasing, chasing, and in the end we did not have one shot on goal. We had some efforts, good efforts, but they were always blocked.”

But despite the defeat, Eriksson believes that England will learn from their experience.

“I think we learned a lot about many things,’ he added. ‘We have many young players in the squad and in two years time they will be better and better. It has been nice but I am abit disappointed about today.”

“We were in a very difficult group with with Sweden, Argentina and Nigeria. We had a very good win against Denmark we played very well in the first half against Brazil.

“We were very close but not close enough and in four years – I guess we will have more or less the same squad.”