Portugal coach Fernando Santos claims that his team cannot afford to drop any more points in the World Cup qualification campaign after the shock 2-0 loss against Switzerland.

Coming into the World Cup 2018 qualification group as the reigning Euro champions, Portugal are favourites to win most of the games they take part.

This was not the case against Switzerland, as the opponents produced a shock result. Switzerland were able to take advantage of the home fixture to inflict Portugal an opening defeat in the qualification campaign. It straight away puts a lot of pressure on the team even though opponents like Hungary and Faroe Islands are not expected to pose much of a threat.

Portugal and Switzerland are expected to be the direct competitors for the top spot in the group, which guarantees qualification straight to the World Cup. Teams that finish in the second place have to go through a play-off and Santos will want to avoid this tricky situation at all costs. Portugal recovered to win 6-0 against Andorra in the next match. Even though it may be only one loss, Santos remains cautious due to the low margin for error when it comes to the group B.

The national team are up against Faroe Islands in the next match and it is expected to be an easy encounter.”We’ve not won more than three points [against the Faroe Islands]. We have to depend only on ourselves.The margin for error is not big. We have to win our remaining games.Other teams will not lose many points. If we do not [lose] then I believe that we will finish first. Against Hungary and Latvia this team showed quality, but today our attitude was right. We were favourites and with the right attitude we lived up to expectations,” said Santos.