Denmark retain pride in defeat

Denmark were understandably downcast after their UEFA EURO 2012 campaign foundered with a 2-1 defeat against Germany, but the players insisted that they could feel proud of their performances in Group B, with a bright future still in store for their young team.

William Kvist, Denmark midfielder
It's a shame. They were two stupid goals to concede – a throw-in and two seconds later he kicks it in. And as for the second one, we know they are good on the counter and suddenly the ball is in the net again. So the goals were our own fault. I think we tackled the German players well and we were very solid. The defence did very well, but, unfortunately, not on those two occasions.

We didn't play 100% as we had hoped. However, we also have to accept the fact that Germany are very good and we also know that they can be very good for the whole game. But, of course, we have to defend well against the better opponents and their attacking threat.

I think we proved that we could play against the best teams. We won against the Netherlands and we didn't lose the other games by huge margins. We went very close in the game against Portugal, and we were also very close to getting a point today, so we should be satisfied with the effort, but not the results.

Playing at the tournament was fantastically exciting. It's also incredible how many fans came to Poland. The atmosphere was so good and we could feel the support from back in Denmark. It has been amazing. We have showed that we are among the best teams in Europe and that we can compete against the best teams. It was cool.

Michael Krohn-Dehli, Denmark forward
It was hard to follow the result from the other venue, so we didn't. Right now I’m really not thinking too much about how good my tournament was. I am very disappointed, just like the rest of the team, but of course I am very proud of the team's effort and I think that we brought something to the tournament. We still have a very young team, so there is a lot to work on, so let's hope we can improve even more.

Daniel Agger, Denmark defender
It was as difficult as we expected it to be. But I actually think we did well. We worked together, as long as we had the stamina for it. We just have to accept that we played against a good team. We gave our all; we made some mistakes, which is costly when playing at this level, which you just have to admit. But I think we can pat the boys on the back, because they really did all they could.

Naturally, we wanted to advance. But we have to look at what's positive, which is that we played three good matches, against three really good football teams. That's not something we have a lot of use for right now, but hopefully in the future we can build on that and reach the next finals.

Simon Poulsen, Denmark defender
We have to swallow the disappointment of being knocked out, but in time I think we'll be able to look back and be satisfied with our performances. We're playing against teams from the top shelf of world football – three fantastic opponents.