Greece

By Karolos Grohmann

SALZBURG, June 18 (Reuters) - Greece were unlucky to lose 2-1 against Spain in their final Euro 2008 Group D match on Wednesday and deserved better, said coach Otto Rehhagel.

Declining to answer any questions about his team's overall performance at the finals, where as defending champions they lost all three group matches and scored just one goal, Rehhagel told a news conference they put on a good performance.

"Only a few minutes have passed since the game ended and we will only talk about this match," Rehhagel angrily told reporters after they asked about the departing champions' overall performance at the tournament.

"All these other stories, we will forget them and when we recover we will analyse them then."

Greece led 1-0 with an Angelos Haristeas header against a second string Spanish side that had already qualified for the quarter-finals where they face Italy on Sunday.

The Spaniards scored twice in the second half with the winner coming from Dani Guiza two minutes from time.

Defensive mistakes had cost Greece again, Rehhagel said.

"Today we led 1-0 and Haristeas had an exceptional game," he said. "Everyone wanted to win but we did not convert our chances for 2-0 and instead we gave the Spaniards plenty of space in our own defence," Rehhagel said. "We deserved better."

Keeper Antonis Nikopolidis, who made his 90th and final international appearance and was handed the captain's armband by Angelos Basinas, deserved a better result, the coach said.

"We wanted a good result here, especially for Nikopolidis," he added. "We should have been more aggressive in defence, moved out more, but overall the team did what we had discussed.

"We wanted to say goodbye with our heads held high. But the Spaniards had better ball distribution and, unfortunately, it did not work out," he said.