Brentford boss Thomas Frank paid tribute to his players after their Carabao Cup semifinal defeat to Tottenham.
Spurs won 2-0 thanks to goals from Moussa Sissoko and Heung-min Son.
Frank said, "First and foremost, I must say I'm very proud of my team.
"The first VAR decision, we were inches from equalising. It was an open game, we had a top attitude, we were brave and an equaliser wouldn't have been a totally unfair result against a world-class team.
"If you want to go to a final against a top team, you need the margins with you but then they show class to get a second and after that it was game over. We need to remember Tottenham is a good team, so maybe in the beginning we could've pressed a tiny bit higher but it's a combination of their quality as well.
"We gave that goal away but were in control and created chances. I praise the boys but we need to do better. For 65 minutes we completed against a world-class team. We were brave, we pressed high, we wanted to play and try to control the game.
"Maybe they had a chance more than us but we created opportunities and if you do that against a world-class team, then we know we need the margins to go our way too."
On Josh Da Silva's red card, he added: "The way you have to look at it, if you look at Da Silva, he's never had a red card before. I've never seen him go physical into a tackle, he didn't do it on purpose and I think he caught him."