Holland coach Bert van Marwijk refused to criticise Robin van Persie after the Arsenal captain missed a hatful of chances in the Oranje's shock 1-0 defeat against Denmark in their Euro 2012 opener in Kharkiv.
Van Marwijk's highly-fancied side created 28 opportunities, hitting the post through Arjen Robben and having two penalty appeals turned down, but Michael Krohn-Dehli scored the only goal of the game at Metalist Stadium.
Van Persie was preferred to Klaas-Jan Huntelaar in the starting line-up and, despite his failure to make the most of the numerous chances that came his way, but Van Marwijk said: "It was not only Robin van Persie. There were maybe four, five, six players who had a lot of chances. And the referee had also a chance to give us a penalty."
He added: "I'm not looking for excuses. I'm just trying to give answers to the questions."
The Dutch next face Joachim Low's Germany on Wednesday, and Van Marwijk recognised the added importance of that game given the result, continuing: "We just have to beat Germany. That's not going to be easy but that's the goal now and everyone knows that."
Denmark coach Morten Olsen claimed his team were the better side and deserved their win.
"We said it before the game - if we have to beat one of these teams, we have to reach a high level to get good individual form and a good team performance - and that happened," he said.
"Of course, the Dutch team had some chances but I thought we also had chances. We had good positional play and trusted our own way of playing football.
"That was especially important against a Dutch team who like to dominate. It was important to show how and why we qualified for this tournament. You saw a Danish team who overall were the better team and also over the last 10 minutes were better physically than the Dutch team - that was very important."
Source: PA
