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Cary crazy about final chance

Pedro Cary has found his debut UEFA European Futsal Championship "crazy" experience and the 25-year-old Portugal midfielder says that having made the final they are well aware of the perils of facing Spain.

Pedro Cary has helped Portugal into the final
Pedro Cary has helped Portugal into the final ©Sportsfile

Pedro Cary has found his debut UEFA European Futsal Championship "crazy" experience but the Portugal midfielder knows all about the perils that lie in wait in Saturday's final against Spain.

Potential
After scraping through from the group stage on goal difference, Orlando Duarte's men raised the bar in the knockout phase, beating Serbia and Azerbaijan to reach their first final against Spain – who beat them 6-1 in their second pool match last Sunday. Cary, 25, made his major tournament bow in the 2008 FIFA Futsal World Cup but while Portugal exited early in Brazil, here in Hungary they have gradually realised their potential.

'Still here'
"Maybe at the start of the tournament we didn't expect to be in the final but after we saw who our opponents were in the quarter-finals and semi-finals we thought that we could be in the decisive game," Cary told uefa.com. "What really counts is that we are still here, but always aware of the difficulties which we'll have to cope with on Saturday. Spain have an excellent team and they proved just that against us in the group stage. I do think their best performance so far was that one."

Semi-final nerves
Portugal beat Serbia 5-1 but needed penalties to knock out Azerbaijan. The CF Os Belenenses player said. "We definitely didn't have a great game against Azerbaijan. We experienced problems both in attack and defence but the most important thing is that the team remained united until the final whistle. It was a shame that we had to endure the penalty shoot-out especially because I think that Azerbaijan have a good team but not good enough to force us to go though that."

Opportunity
Cary, who has scored five goals in 26 games for Portugal, simply loving the time spent in Hungary. "Personally this experience has just been crazy," he said. "I'm learning and evolving as a player every single day, so I have to be very thankful for having been offered such an opportunity."

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