Thursday Sep 29 2005 16:04
Thomas Sorensen has brushed aside suggestions he purposely dropped a cross to help Denmark and Sweden qualify for the quarter-finals of Euro 2004.
Denmark looked to be heading for all three points until the 89th minute when Sorensen failed to hold onto Christian Wilhelmsson's cross and Mattias Jonson was on hand to knock the ball into an empty net.
As a result, Italy were knocked out of the tournament, despite their 2-1 win over Bulgaria which left their players and officials fuming that a conspiracy theory had taken place between the two Scandinavian sides to help knock them out.
Italy knew before the game a 2-2 draw between Denmark and Sweden would automatically knock them out of the competition.
But Sorensen insists both teams were never playing for a point and were determined to win a local derby which means so much to both sets of supporters.
Sorensen said: "I'm not taking any blame for Sweden's second goal. I had no chance of catching the ball. I got one hand to it and was just trying to block it in very difficult conditions.
"I think we played well and anyone who saw the game cannot talk about anything else. It was two sides going for the win. Italy haven't scored and won enough games and that's football.
"We wanted to win the group so of course it was not our intention to draw the game.
"The ball was very slippery and the pitch was very slippery, so for all the players and especially the keepers it was very difficult. But now we can look back and be happy with the result because we've qualified.
"At the same time, you saw at the end that we all feel a little disappointed because, as we said before this game, we wanted to win and we wanted to win the group. There was a lot of pride at stake.
"Of course both teams now have gone through, but we would have liked to won against Sweden because it's like England beating Scotland or something like that. It means a lot, so we're disappointed in that sense."
The Aston Villa keeper is now relishing a quarter-final showdown against the Czech Republic in Porto on Sunday night.
And although the Czech Republic have taken the competition by storm overtaking Holland and Germany to win Group D, Sorensen believes they are not as strong as people make them out to be.
He added: "We've got to play the Czech Republic and I think it's going to be an open game. They've shown a great team spirit, although I don't think they've been quite as impressive as people have been making out.
"We'll be confident again. Fingers crossed we'll go to a higher level than we performed against Sweden and we'll go through. Hopefully we can build on our last game and this will be good for our confidence.
"We're in the quarter-final and anything can happen and that's the main thing, but we are a little disappointed about our final result against Sweden.
"After we scored our second goal I think we dominated and we should have scored more to kill the game off.
"We didn't do that, though, and that's something we need to do in the quarter-final if we are to go through."
Sorensen believes his side will stand a greater chance of reaching the semi-finals if striker Jon Dahl Tomasson can continue his amazing start to the competition in front of goal.
He said: "Jon is always there and is a quality striker. He showed it in the World Cup and he's shown it again here.
"The first goal against Sweden was a great one and for the second he just lurks in the penalty area to finish it off. He's now got three goals and I hope he can carry it on."
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