Brave Angola make Portugal work hard

Angola 0 Portugal 1: They may not have delivered the fairytale story the neutrals wanted but Angola did more than enough to retain their pride last night in Cologne, where Pauleta's solitary first-half goal secured the points for a Portugal side that will have to improve over the coming weeks if it is to seriously threaten the tournament favourites.

The Africans came with little experience of facing teams of this calibre. And despite huge enthusiasm for the game, Angola's bloody civil war has left football languishing down the nation's list of priorities and meant a struggle even to maintain a national league in a country where road travel has been considered unsafe for most of the 31 years since independence.

The Portuguese are in fact the only European side Angola have played, the two games going badly for the Africans.

Under coach Luis De Oliveira Goncalves, the sort of figure Hollywood might seize upon as the basis for a feel-good story, things have moved dramatically forward but there must still have been concern about their ability to hold their own against the European Championship silver medallists.

The Angolan side contains plenty of players with connections to the Portuguese game but only a couple have ever been at what might be considered a "big club" and one of them, Benfica's Mantorras, again found himself on the bench at the start, a fate that prompted him to fall out with his coach at the African Cup of Nations.

So it was that unheralded players from Varzim, Petro Atletico and Barreirense, not to mention two who currently have no clubs at all, sought for at least one night to shine as brightly as the likes of Luis Figo, Cristino Ronaldo and Pauleta.

On the face of it the latter's record of 46 goals in 82 games for his country marked him out as a particular threat to Angola, and early on here he looked set to equal or even surpass his performance against Poland in South Korea four year ago when his hat-trick paved the way to a 4-0 victory.

He could well have been off themark within 10 seconds when Simao slipped the ball into his path and, as the Angolan defence looked on, he pulled the ball low to the right of the right-hand post.

With Deco ruled out by injury, Luis Figo started in the centre of the team's standard three behind a lone striker. Petit started the move that led to the Portuguese goal but it was the 33-year-old's ability to almost nonchalantly round Jamba after pushing the ball beyond the centre half that suddenly sent the Angolans into disarray.

As Joao Ricardo arrived at his feet the Inter star squared for Pauleta, who stole in front of Kali for the easiest of finishes. It now looked ominous for the debutants. Portugal looked slick and confident in every area of the pitch. But after Pauleta narrowly missed the target 15 minutes in after Ricardo Carvalho had found him with a long and looping ball forward, Angola seemed to sense the worst had passed.

Portugal lost their urgency and their opponents grew more assured. In Akwa, their lone centre forward and captain, they had a player with more than enough confidence to spring a surprise on Luis Felipe Scolari's back four.

His two overhead volleys delighted the 45,000 crowd, though the Portuguese among it were a little less appreciative when a firmly struck long-range effort by Andre forced a flying save from Ricardo. By now the underdogs were making a real fight of it.

Their goalkeeper and centre halves had redeemed themselves while Mendonca, Ze Kalanga and Mateus had all shown themselves capable of troubling their opponents, particularly when breaking at speed.

But the quality was never quite there to force the goal they wanted. Still, Portugal proved incapable of making the game entirely safe either, Miguel threatening midway through the second half only for Joao Ricardo to react well and Maniche forcing a decent stop late on with a blistering 35-yard strike the goalkeeper did well to push over.