Portugal beat Serbia for the first time in the history of the World League in Belgrade on Friday in a result that shocked the Serbian team.

But Portugal’s Flavio Cruz warned the second match would be tough: “It will be a very difficult match because they didn’t expect us to put on this show tonight. Tonight, we played a really good and hard match and the Serbian team will be more prepared for the second one; we know that. They really are a good team, but their combinations didn’t go well. I’m sure the second match will be much more difficult to play.”

Serbia’s Milos Nikic said his team was ready to respond: “I can say only one thing: We really believe we will win the second match. Today was a repeat of the first match we played against Finland; we made the same mistakes as before and I am sorry for not winning tonight. But I’m positive we’ll play better tomorrow. We’ll do our best to win the second match, we will put on a good performance and we will fight for every point.”

The second match between Serbia and Portugal is set for Saturday at 20:00 CET in SPC Vojvodina in Novi Sad.