Serbia sleep, perchance to dream

Coach Aca Kovačević said there would be no celebrations after Serbia's shock 4-3 win against Russia, sending his players to bed early to prepare for "the most important match of our careers" against Portugal on Tuesday.

Stunning turnaround
Having gone 2-0 down early in the second half, Serbia turned the UEFA European Futsal Championship Group C decider on its head with three goals in the space of two minutes, going on to win 4-3 to earn a crack at Portugal in the quarter-finals at the Papp László Arena – and a real chance to make it to the last four of the competition for the first time.

Early night
Admitting he was almost as pleased about avoiding Spain as he was about beating the Russians, Kovačević said: "Tonight I will be sending the players to bed very early because the next match will be the most important match of our careers; we have a very good chance to make it to the semi-finals and we do not want to let that opportunity go to waste."

Satisfying success
With his side having gone down to Russia in the 2007 finals and in qualifying for the 2008 FIFA Futsal World Cup, the coach added: "We had no shortage of motivation having lost both of our recent high-profile games against Russia. Now we have our revenge. We knew our players would give 100 per cent and the result is that we have beaten one of the favourites for the title.

Aggressive response
"I told them at half-time that they had to be more aggressive and press them harder," continued the coach. "It is the only way to win against Russia because if you let them control the ball you have a big problem. After the Slovenia game I told the players that I believe this team can do better in this tournament than we did in the last EURO. Today we proved we really can."

Skorovich irate
Russia coach Sergei Skorovich laid into his vanquished team after the match. "Some players thought that the result was sealed at 2-0 and stopped playing," he growled. "Futsal, like Hungary and the Czechs showed last night, can change completely in seconds. We warned the lads but a classy team cannot afford to finish a match like this."

Maevski contrite
Captain Konstantin Maevski could only agree, telling uefa.com: "We committed very grave mistakes which led to the defeat. We did not lose belief when we were 4-2 down, but when you concede so many goals in such short period of time, a lot of things break down game-wise. We may have had the belief, but we did not deserve the draw."