Milu puts on a brave face as China outclassed by Portugal

China coach Bora Milutinovic refused to be downhearted after his World Cup-bound team slipped to their third straight defeat last night, this time at the hands of classy Portugal. Fiorentina striker Nuno Gomes struck the opener in the 50th minute and Bordeaux midfielder Pedro Pauleta added another on the hour as the Portuguese ran out impressive 2-0 winners at Macau's Taipa Sports Stadium.

The setback followed earlier defeats at the hands of Uruguay (2-0) and Dutch club PSV Eindhoven (1-0) but, even though his strikers failed to find the net again, the charismatic Milutinovic remained upbeat. 'Nobody likes to lose, but I would have to say that I am quite satisfied with the performance, especially in the first half when we created several chances and held them to a goalless draw,' he said.

'We didn't score goals but the most important thing is that we created chances. Portugal are a very strong team and if they play as well as they did in the European Championship [two years ago, when they reached the semi-finals, losing to France], then they will have no problems in the World Cup.

'We played a stronger team who displayed better control on the pitch. They were better than us overall. Portugal created more chances than us. We can still improve on this and expect to make improvements before our first game. We still have time to improve,' said the Serbian coach, whose team begin their World Cup campaign against Costa Rica on June 4 in Gwangjiu.

Portugal coach Antonio Oliveira was pleased with his team's final warm-up game before they take on the United States on June 5 in Suwon. Portugal turned on the power at the start of the second half with six key substitutions that turned it around for the World Cup contenders.

'The team is adapting well to the conditions here [in Asia], but we still need to fully adapt,' said Oliveira. 'We were careful in the game. I didn't want to go full out against China and risk injuries. As I said before, this match was no more than match practice for us and I liked what I saw.