Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said that only reaching the final would make his team's World Cup campaign successful. "It'd be great if we can reach the final," Scolari was quoted as saying by Portuguese paper Maisfutebol. "From there I think we'd have a good chance of winning the cup and that would be the great achievement, but till we beat France we achieved nothing yet." Scolari is leading Portugal into their first semi final since 1966 and the Brazilian tactician believes that after reaching the final eight, his players are capable of beating France. "No one expected us to come this far, but now as we are among the best four teams in the world, we can dream and we will try to go till the end." Portugal topped their group with three victories before ousting Holland and England respectively despite being underdogs in both encounters. Their aggressive and tricky style earned them a place in the semis but also stirred debates over their sporting behavior after yellow and red cards battle against Holland in the last 16.
Similar incidents were repeated when Cristiano Ronaldo got England striker Wayne Rooney sent-off but Scolari insisted that the Portuguese do not play dirty game. "It's a joke and everyone who says that doesn't know what he'd talking about, there are many players allover the world who occasionally do things that aren't correct," Scolari said. Now, Scolari's side have to lay France's ghosts to rest if they want to feature in a World Cup final for the first time in their history. Portugal played France twice in competitive games and both occasions were in the same stage but in the European Cup of Nations. In 1984, they lost 3-2 after Michel Platini scored in the extra time while they were eliminated in EURO 2000 after Zinedine Zidane notched a golden goal for the Frenchmen in the extra time. But Scolari believes this is about time to overturn this record. "If you look at the history then France will be favorites, but also Portugal have done good things, we'll be positive and try to change the history of such fixture."
