Johansson praises fantastic Zidane

Zinedine Zidane: "Fabulous to watch"

Danish coach Bo Johansson paid tribute to France's midfield maestro Zinedine Zidane, who dictated the midfield in his side's 3-0 win over Denmark.

Goals from Laurent Blanc, Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord gave the world champions a comprehensive win in the opening game of Group D.

"The French are a fantastic team and when you watch a player like Zidane you just enjoy it. He is fantastic," said Johansson.

"We tried to do what we could and in the first 15 minutes we had some good chances. The game could have looked very different if we had scored first."

Jon Dahl Tomasson missed a great chance to put the Danes ahead in the second minute but his effort was blocked by Fabien Barthez, who also kept out Ebbe Sand's shot before Blanc opened the scoring after 16 minutes.

Hard

Johansson said: "We came again in the second half when it was 1-0 and we tried again. Maybe we tried a bit too hard because they punished us when we lost the ball.

"They were very quick but these players have more than speed. There are very skilful. It's wrong to put all the attention on their speed because they are very good footballers."

But French coach Roger Lemerre reminded his players that nothing was won after France's stylish start to Euro 2000.

Points

Lemerre was delighted to get three points in the bag but wary not to get too carried away by the result.

The French coach said: "It was a good opening game. It wasn't easy. We had to be very strong and very tough to win, but nothing is won yet and the players know that.

"What this team has done in the last two seasons is fabulous and everyone is aware of it.

"The Danes are not finished, they are still a good team, but we took the first three points and that makes me very happy. "Denmark are not easy opponents and we didn't play well for the first 10 minutes but we got better."