Spending 20 days with the Portuguese team this month was like seeing a girlfriend in the harsh morning light for the first time and realising she was ugly, coach Luiz Felipe Scolari says.

Scolari spent 18 months training his side for the European Championship, then made three significant changes to his team for last Wednesday's 2-0 win over Russia after they lost 2-1 to Greece in their opening match.

"I'd only ever had two or three days with the players," said the Brazilian coach on Saturday when asked why he made three major changes to his side for the second Group A match against Russia.

"Those 20 days were the first time I had the chance to spend a long time with the team.

"It was like going out with a girlfriend for five or six years, getting married and splitting up one week later.

"You sleep together, wake up and then you see what she looks like first thing in the morning -- really quite ugly."

Portugal need to beat neighbours and arch-rivals Spain in their final Group A match on Sunday to qualify for the second round.

"We're in this situation because we didn't have quality," added Scolari.

"If we had had more quality, we would already be qualified. But we didn't, so we're still fighting for our place."