Coaches draw breath after classic

José Venancio, Spain coach
I'd like to congratulate Portugal on putting on a great show today. They played some fantastic futsal and were very unlucky to be knocked out of the competition. Nobody deserved to lose tonight but this sport is a cruel game and somebody had to lose. It was a wonderful game of futsal played by two exciting teams and we had the luck when we needed it. It was horrible to fall two goals behind after a very equal first half but we made a mistake for their first goal, missed a number of good chances and then fell two behind to a special goal from a special player – Ricardinho.

After that my team showed great composure thanks to the calming influence of some of my players, particularly Kike. My team always seem to surprise me and have never let me down in the big situations. This time it looked like it was too late but some big saves from my goalkeeper and some big performances in the last six minutes ensured we have now booked a place in the final. Now we can turn our attention to the final where we will meet another great team who play a different style of futsal. It will certainly be a great advert for goalkeeping with the two best goalkeepers in the world coming head to head.

Orlando Duarte, Portugal coach
I thought we were the better team for the most part of the game. Anyone who saw this game knows that it was a great advert for futsal. My team deserve a lot of credit for the style of futsal which they played throughout the tournament and particularly in this semi-final when for 35 minutes we were outstanding. Some people have criticised us for the way we have played at times but tonight I think we showed what a great team is developing here in Portugal because at times we were outplaying a Spanish side who are the title holders and regarded as a much better team than us.

Some people may criticise us for the tactics we used at the end of the game when we may have appeared to struggle against the five outfield players of Spain but this is something we have practiced a lot in training. I was frustrated with the two goals we conceded – one was a rebound which was hard to defend and the other one was an error when perhaps the pressure of the situation became too tough to deal with. A few people will wonder whether things would have been different had [most-capped player] André Lima been fit. We will never know the answer but he is injured and we have done very well without him. We will not look for excuses.