Okuka's boys to grab last chance

Like star pupils on a school prize day, Serbia and Montenegro defenders Milan Biševac and Milan Stepanov took centre stage alongside coach Dragomir Okuka yesterday and received a glowing tribute before the assembly of journalists: "These two lads really deserve to be here – they showed against Germany how the others should have played. If you want to win, you need eleven players with the will that these two showed."

'No more mistakes'
Okuka's head boys, however, were less interested in praise than in Group A points following their country's 1-0 opening-day defeat by Germany. For FK Crvena Zvezda's 22-year-old centre-back Biševac, Thursday's examination by Portugal in Barcelos is one that simply must be passed. "The key thing is to be aware that we cannot afford to make any more mistakes, else our tournament is over. Thursday is a final for us, although it will be very tough as Portugal have quality like Ricardo Quaresma and Hugo Almeida. We are very disappointed with our showing against Germany, but our focus has to be 100 per cent on Portugal."

'Wrong approach'
Stepanov, a 23-year-old from Turkish club Trabzonspor, accepted responsibility for the Germany display as a senior player while insisting that the squad now had to pull together. "As experienced players we will take the blame for Tuesday's game – but the big problem was the approach because some players didn't understand the importance of the match." With the words "last chance" also cropping up in Serbia and Montenegro's pre-match press conference, Okuka will hope the rest of the players follow his prefects' example.