Portugal

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Defeat fails to upset Scolari

16 Jun 2008 - 08:29:47

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Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari wished he had made more than eight changes to his starting line-up after watching his side lose 2-0 to Switzerland in their final Group A game.

Victories against Czech Republic and Turkey had sealed Portugal's place in the quarter-finals before the Swiss game, but Scolari's experimental team failed to gel as they produced a disjointed performance.

Scolari said after the defeat: "I wanted to see who had played most during the season and who had been injured. I was trying to help the players.

"We played as I expected and had a few opportunities but we didn't get the goal we wanted. Later we will see the consequences.

"I should have replaced 11 players rather than eight. We ran too many risks by putting in three or four players who had played in the previous games.

"I didn't change the tactics though. We had a striker (Helder Postiga) who played more or less like Nuno Gomes. What we didn't have was a midfielder like Deco.

"But even with all the changes, we played fairly well and created a few opportunities, though we didn't take them. We could have gone to 4-4-2 but we decided to stick to the basics."