Mark van Bommel, Rafael van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder and John Heitinga were left a little numb after the Netherlands utterly dominated their Group B opener against Denmark but still conspired to lose 1-0, with the two midfielders wondering how they managed to pass up so many chances at the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv.

Mark van Bommel, Netherlands midfielder
We gave them one chance. That, and another from a corner, and that was it as far as the danger Denmark created. We created chances through playing football. We created a number of chances, good chances. It's strange that we've lost. It wasn't because of one single player. Three, four or even five guys had chances. One hit the post, and we had many other good opportunities.

I'm standing here a little bit speechless, because these three points were very important. It's not over, though. There are two more matches to come. [Scoring goals] is what it's all about. We played very well, but we didn't win. I prefer to play badly and win 1-0. We have to win [the remaining two games]. We have no other choice.

Rafael van der Vaart, Netherlands midfielder
It was a match where you thought it would go in eventually, but that didn't happen, and when you miss so many chances – and actually we gave one or two chances away – and end up losing 1-0, that's just disappointing. The ball has to go in, and it's very disappointing. When you shoot at goal 25 times and you don't score any, then you don't deserve to win. You never can be satisfied with a defeat.