Rehhagel defends strategies

Greece boss Otto Rehhagel has defended his strategies against Sweden after the Euro 2004 champions slumped to defeat 2-0 against Sweden on Tuesday night, with goals from Hansson and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

I didn't like my players at the back passing that way," he said. "Players in any position have to be creative.

"We have to defend strongly before we can score," Rehhagel said. "We don't have the attacking options of teams like Germany. If we had applied different tactics we might have been 5-0 down at halftime.

"The Greeks didn't play with heart like they normally do, and the Swedes pushed us hard, I think the Swedes deserve to win. We have to accept that. Some of my players were unable to play at the level I expected them to. "