Basel drew 1-1 with FC Porto in a nervy encounter at Switzerland, a performance which has not gone down well with Sousa.
FC Basel played with 'fear' and were 'well below their best' in their 1-1 draw against FC Porto in the Champions League on Wednesday, coach Paulo Sousa said.
Sousa and opposite number Julen Lopetegui both agreed that the Portuguese were the 'better side' on a freezing night, although the Basel coach said he was looking forward to the 'challenge' of trying to win the return at the Estadio do Dragao.
"We played with a little bit of fear and we are a much better team than we have shown here," he told reporters after the round of 16 first leg.
"But I'm very happy because myself and my staff and my players revel in these difficulties and they caused us many difficulties with their quality and their speed. I think Porto played better and, even though they did not create that many good scoring chances, they deserved the result they got," added Sousa.
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Lopetegui said that only the Portuguese media were not satisfied with his side's performance. "I gave four interviews before I came into this press conference and the only one in Portuguese was also the only one which didn't praise us," he said.
"All the others said how well we had played. We had 15 shots on goal, on a difficult ground and we played really well. We had a penalty not given in the first half, an offside given against us which wasn't, a yellow card for Basel when it should have been red and we had a goal disallowed," added Lopetegui.
"We were clearly superior to a very good team and, I think in adverse circumstances. They scored with their only shot on goal, they were 100 percent efficient which is very unusual in football," signed off Lopetegui.
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