Bilić gives credit to Croatia stand-ins

Slaven Bilić, Croatia coach

Leo Beenhakker, Poland coach
We have tried but it's not been good enough. This is more or less what we have seen the whole tournament. Everybody is very disappointed because we had a lot of ambition to do better and that was a realistic thing because we showed during most of the qualifying matches that we can do much better. But I have to say we were not good enough in this tournament. Several important players have not been in top form for us, players who made the difference in qualifying like [Euzebiusz] Smolarek, [Mariusz] Lewandowski and [Jacek] Krzynówek. I don't blame them for that. No player can play for three years or even over a season at the same high level, especially when there is such strong opposition in front of you. Croatia have some fantastic players and, for me, they are a dangerous outsider [to win the tournament].