5 July 2006, by Tom Kundert

Scolari tells Portugal to realise dream

“Deco is flying,” says Brazilian

Luiz Filipe Scolari says Portugal have broken through limits and have earned the right to dream, but warned his players that nothing has been won yet.

“My team are breaking through limits, and when you exceed limits, there are no more limits. There is a dream to be realised.”

“Now we are among the best four, we can dream. Before we had a lot of obstacles in our way, but now we’ve only got one. We’re taking it step by step and we’re going to try to reach the final.”

“We know what’s left. One game to reach the World Cup final. And we are prepared for it.”

A Portuguese newspaper ran a poll to choose the best name to call its football heroes, the result of which was “The Conquerors”.

Scolari said that there is one more hurdle left to truly merit such praise.

“I think conquerors is a good name, but only if we get past France. If we don’t get past France we haven’t conquered what we wanted and what Portugal desires. If we get to the final yes, then we have conquered something.”

Scolari denied that his players were under increasing pressure. “They’re living these moments normally, as just another step of a big project. We never planned to be World Champions; we always planned things for our next match.”

The Brazilian admitted that the return of Deco and Costinha would be a huge boost for the team.

“Before the match against England I joked with the two of them, saying that we were going to get through and then I expected them to do something special for us.”

“Given Deco’s fitness difficulties it ended up being a good thing that he didn’t play against England. He’s flying now.”