Tunisia manager Roger Lemerre appeared in good spirits after his team's departure from the World Cup following a 1-0 defeat to Ukraine on Friday and said they learned a valuable lesson from their campaign. "We would have liked to progress. It's good to learn, but it's nicer to learn while you are winning. But we made it as far as possible," Lemerre said in a press conference after the match. But the French boss has insisted that he is disappointed at exiting from the World Cup. "The bitterness in the team and for me is huge that we are out of the tournament. But I will not comment the referee, I do my job, and the referee does his." "My opinions are not useful here because it's not in my power to make decisions on the pitch. The referee makes the decisions and you have to accept them," Lemerre said. Lemerre also hailed his players' performance throughout their short campaign and refused to compare between them and Spain, saying that there is a huge difference between both sides. "For a competition like the World Cup, you need great attackers and we have one or two really good ones," he said. "Then you look at a team like Spain who have Raul sitting on the bench. "There is a big difference. Tunisia can only give what it has. We have selected the right people." On the other hand, Ukraine head coach Oleg Blokhin revealed his happiness at their qualification to the second round. "Let me congratulate the team. We wanted to make it to the round of 16 and now we have made it," Blokhin said. "Today, we saw that everybody was nervous. We even started calculating what was needed (to qualify). "In the first half, we did not allow the Tunisians to do anything, but the dismissal off the Tunisian player was not good for us. We lost our discipline after that," he added. Blokhin also praised Lemerre and Tunisians' performance in the match and said that they played better than the Saudis. "Plus the Tunisian players were better then the ones from Saudi Arabia, and Roger Lemerre is a very good coach," Blokhin said.
