Vienna - The Austrian team remain confident of making it to the knockout phase of Euro 2008 despite losing their opening Group B encounter to Croatia.

Luka Modric scored the only goal of the game after just four minutes from the penalty spot but Roman Kienast, who nearly equalized for Austria with a header that went just wide of the post in injury time, said his team could take a lot from its strong performance.

"The stupid penalty at the beginning was painful," he said. "We have to forget about his match and concentrate on the next matches and beat Germany and Poland."

Ronald Gercaliu agreed, saying that his side paid the price for starting too slowly against the talented Croats.

"We were weak in the first half and lost possession too easily," he said. "It's a pity that we didn't get anything out of the game.

Defender Sebastian Proedl felt Croatia were lucky to take all three points but that there were positives to be drawn from the game.

"Austria has shown that it can play high tempo for 90 minutes," he said.

"Maybe we will be lucky just like Portugal (in 2004) who also lost their first match (as hosts before going on to the final)."

But assistant coach Andreas Herzog was more sanguine about the result, pointing to his side's inability to create a clear-cut chance in front of goal despite dominating possession in the second half.

"In three minutes, everything that we built up over two years was knocked down," he said. "We lacked the final clinical touch in front of goal." (dpa)