ARNHEM, Netherlands, June 22 (Reuters) - Norway may struggle to win the Eurovision Song Contest but their Euro 2000 fans triumphed with an inspired choice of words and music after their team's dramatic exit from the tournament.

In the middle of noisy celebrations in Arnhem of the Dutch victory over France, a small group of Norwegians could be heard singing 'Always look on the bright side of life.'

It summed up perfectly an emotional night of ups and downs for Norway, playing in their first European championship.

They finished a dull 0-0 draw with Slovenia thinking they had done just enough to reach the quarter-finals of Euro 2000.

As they walked off the pitch, their satisfaction turned to sorrow when news came through that Spain had pulled off a dramatic 4-3 defeat of Yugoslavia to take Norway's group C place in the last eight.

Norway's fans and players were philosophical about their plight and laid the blame for it at their own door.

'We have no one else to blame but ourselves. We feel only disappointment that we didn't perform much better,' Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo said. 'I couldn't really believe it.'

The Norwegians had played the last 20 minutes thinking that Yugoslavia were set to win and they therefore played for the draw which would have been enough to put them through.

Nine times out of 10 the tactic would have paid off, but two injury time goals by Spain turned the group on its head.

Although there was bitter disappointment in the dressing room, the Norwegians accepted they should have played better and won their passage to the quarter-finals themselves.

Manchester United defender Henning Berg added: 'We knew Yugoslavia were 3-2 up and Slovenia were giving us trouble. In the end we were happy with a draw. We thought that was good enough but obviously it wasn't.'

In the tightest group of the first round the Norwegians scored just one goal in three games, in the 1-0 defeat of Spain. Their football is far from flamboyant and based on a water-tight defence and a simple high-ball attacking policy.

'We would have loved to have gone home having played entertaining football but we didn't play as well as we can,' forward Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said. 'We know we can do much better than this. We weren't good enough.'

The Norwegian media were in agreement. 'We got what we deserved,' the top-selling Verdens Gang daily said in a front-page headline over a picture of a thunderstruck coach Nils Johan Semb on his knees on the pitch where Norway had just played out a dull 0-0 draw against Slovenia.

Some commentators called for a more imaginative style, upgrading a long-ball system which brought the team just one goal in three matches at Euro 2000. None called for Semb's resignation.

'Red, white and beaten,' the daily Dagbladet said in a headline over a photograph of a Norwegian fan wiping away a tear with the nation's red, white and blue flag. Souvenir sellers in Belgium and Netherlands halved the price of Norwegian mementoes.

'Norway didn't manage to beat Euro 2000's worst team in Euro 2000's worst match. Norway scored just one goal in three matches and so everyone understands that Norway got what they deserved,' Verdens Gang commentator Truls Daehli said. Dagbladet's commentator Oivind Monn-Iversen was more forgiving.

'I'm convinced that Nils Johan Semb's playing style is the only right one for a Norwegian national team,' he said. Semb has been trying to diversify the team away from its rock-solid defence.