Portugal beat England 6-5 on penalties to clinch a Euro 2004 semi-final spot on Thursday after the scores were tied at 2-2 after extra time.

Portugal beat England in quarter-final

David Beckham missed England's first penalty before Rui Costa missed for Portugal.

Portugal keeper Ricardo saved Darius Vassell's kick and Ricardo himself hit the winner.

England took the lead three minutes into normal time through Michael Owen and the hosts equalized after 83 minutes through Helder Postiga.

Rui Costa fired Portugal into the lead 20 minutes into extra time but England midfielder Frank Lampard made it 2-2 with five minutes.

Scorers:

Portugal beat England 6-5 on penalties to enter semi-finals

Portugal - Helder Postiga 83, Rui Costa 110

England - Michael Owen 3, Frank Lampard 115

Halftime: 0-1; 90 mins: 1-1; 120 mins: 2-2

Attendance: 62,564

Teams:

Portugal (4-3-3): 1-Ricardo; 13-Miguel (10-Rui Costa 79),16-Ricardo Carvalho, 4-Jorge Andrade, 14-Nuno Valente;6-Costinha (11-Simao Sabrosa 63), 18-Maniche, 20-Deco; 7-Luis Figo (23-Helder Postiga 75), 17-Cristiano Ronaldo, 21-Nuno Gomes.

England (4-4-2): 1-David James; 2-Gary Neville, 5-John Terry, 6-Sol Campbell, 3-Ashley Cole; 7-David Beckham, 11-Frank Lampard, 4-Steven Gerrard (18-Owen Hargeaves 81), 8-Paul Scholes(14-Phil Neville 57); 9-Wayne Rooney (23-Darius Vassell 27),10-Michael Owen.

Referee: Urs Meier (Switzerland)

Linesmen: Francesco Buragina (Switzerland), Rudolf Kappeli (Switzerland)

Eriksson praises his team despite loss

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson still thought they played a good game despite their penalty shootout loss to hosts Portugal on Thursday.

"The spirit has been fantastic, I can't complain in any way about the players, they've been great all the way through," he said.

England had a dreaming start when their spearhead Michael Owen scored an amazing goal only three minutes into the game.

England thought they had scored a winner in the final minute of normal time when Owen headed against the crossbar and Sol Campbell forced the rebound over the line. But Swiss referee Urs Meier disallowed the goal for a foul on goalkeeper Ricardo and the game went into extra time.

"It's very hard to take losing in this way," said Eriksson. "We weren't lucky, especially with Sol's disallowed goal, but that's football."