Krivets philosophical after Sweden mauling

Midfielder Sergei Krivets took Belarus's 5-1 defeat against Sweden on the chin but hoped that his side would regain their focus quickly, telling uefa.com: "It is humiliating, but that's the nature of football. Life goes on."

'We deserved to lose'
A spectacular long-range effort from Sergei Kislyak gave Belarus a shock lead against the UEFA Under-21 European Championship hosts on 33 minutes, but by half-time they were 3-1 down and they conceded two more after the interval to the delight of the home fans at Malmö New Stadium. "We deserved to lose," Krivets said. "I cannot remember a more disappointing defeat in my career.

Remedial work
"However, it was not as if Sweden were better than we expected," added the FC BATE Borisov midfielder, who turned 23 on 8 June. "We played well below our usual standard." All, however, is not lost for Belarus, as Krivets said: "It is humiliating, but that's the nature of football. Life goes on. We have to get together, analyse what went wrong, do our homework and remedy the situation."

Birthday looming
A victory against Serbia on Friday would do much to alleviate their distress, and it would also be an apt – albeit slightly belated – birthday gift for defensive midfielder Aleksandr Volodko, who turns 23 a day earlier. "We will try to win both remaining matches," Krivets' BATE team-mate told uefa.com. "To succeed we have to play more aggressively and be more stubborn."

Sweden debacle
As for the Sweden game, the No8 agreed that many of Belarus's wounds were self-inflicted. "The fact that we conceded so soon after taking the lead is probably the major reason for our defeat," Volodko said. "Then we conceded two more. These goals broke our spirit. We mainly conceded after making mistakes. We tried to respond after the break, played more creatively, pushed forward and then conceded two more goals."