Pavićević cuts Portugal to the quick

After beating Russia to reach the last eight, captain Bojan Pavićević felt Serbia could be more than a match for Portugal, telling uefa.com: "It's just their speed that makes them stand out."

Stunning result
In perhaps the biggest shock result of the UEFA European Futsal Championship to date, Aca Kovačević's side came back from 2-0 down against highly-rated Russia to win 4-3, claiming top spot in Group C and a quarter-final meeting with Portugal at Budapest's Papp László Arena on Tuesday, while sentencing Russia to face holders Spain in Debrecen.

Speed alone
After that incredible match, Pavićević felt his side could give Portugal hell, saying: "Russia are a better team than Portugal, possibly second only to Spain in Europe. Portugal are famous for their pace; pretty much it's just their speed that makes them stand out. In all other aspects we can be a match for them."

Soft opener
The 34-year-old captain, a constant source of strength and reassurance for his team-mates with his somewhat idiosyncratic open-handed stance throughout the game, was impressed at the manner in which Serbia recovered from conceding a "soft" first-half goal before the Russians doubled their lead within two minutes of the restart.

'Went for it'
"After they scored the second goal, we started to push more, to press them and it worked," the KMF Marbo Beograd player explained. "If the Russians had scored a third goal, they would just have sat back and saved energy for the quarter-finals, but when it was 2-1, we got ourselves together and just went for it.

Better chances
"Of course, throughout the whole game the Russians had better chances to win," he added. "Thank God they weren't that effective. We took this match as a quarter-final already, because if we had lost we knew Spain were waiting for us. We played 100 per cent and this is what decided the game because we made as many mistakes as the Russians."

'A heroic deed'
Such a fantastic performance can only augur well for the challenges ahead, as Serbia bid to make it to the semi-finals for a first time. "We respect Portugal," he said. "They might be just a step below Russia. Anything can happen in this match; we can lose and we can win. However, what we did against Russia was really a heroic deed."