Russia's national team coach Dick Advocaat, after a sensational defeat to Greece, said that his players did not deserve to end the European Championship so early.
The Russians, considered clear favorites, dropped to third place in Group A and did not reach the quarterfinals after this failure.
"Of course, after a failure, everything is naturally viewed negatively, but we played well against the Czech Republic, against Poland, and today against Greece," said the Dutchman, who is leaving the national team and will coach the Eindhoven PSV club next season.
"We were clearly better than Greece. However, we missed an unexpected goal and couldn't recover. The opponents are able to stretch a good result until the end."
And he added: "I don't really care what others say about me. The coaching staff worked very hard - after all, we didn't lose 16 games in a row, but this time it didn't go our way. We should have won, but that's football, so congratulations to the Greeks."