Sarajevo - "See you in Zenica," a front page headline said Sunday following Bosnia's "unfortunate" 1-0 defeat in Portugal in the first leg off World Cup qualifications play-off.

"I never saw more misfortune," the national team coach, Croat Miroslav Blazevic was quoted as saying in the newspaper, the Oslobodjenje.

Virtually all local newspapers insist that Bosnia, with several clear shots at the Portuguese goal, was unlucky to lose.

"Fortune turned its back," was the headline in the mass-circulation Dnevni Avaz, while Nezavisne Novine said "luck was Portugal's ally."

Favourites Portugal, who finished fourth in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, will "face real hell" in the second leg of the play-off in Zenica on Wednesday, newspapers said.

A total of eight teams are battling for the four remaining European spots for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.