Win for Porto

The defeat leaves hapless Hamburg out of European competition with zero points from four games, club boss Bernd Hoffmann declaring the team "not up to European standard" and plenty of lamenting that some players showed a blatant lack of dedication.

"If all 11 make an effort we can do it," club legend Uwe Seeler said ahead of the game.

Instead, Porto won handily from Lucho Gonzalez' sensational volley in the 44th, Lisandro Lopez on the hour and substitute Bruno Morales in the 87th.

Hamburg hit back with Dutch international Rafael van der Vaart scoring a minute after Lopez's goal, but Brazilian Bruno Moraes scored three minutes from time to clinch the win for the Portuguese visitors.

Hamburg's short-lived European campaign

From then on it was all downhill and it was surreal to watch the 51,000-crowd reduced to 15,000 die-hards within three minutes after Porto's final strike.

Hamburg has not played in this competition since 2001 and this season has been a brief European adventure with four straight defeats meaning they do not even have a chance to qualify for the UEFA Cup with third place.

"If we have a big mouth before the game we should better win it," said Dutch central defender Joris Mathijsen.

While the likes of Mathijsen, Argentina captain Juan Pablo Sorin, van der Vaart and Piotr Trochowski played up to standard for the 1983 European champions, the misery was personified by Cameroon defender Timothy Atouba.

Skilful and graceful on a good day, the 24-year-old was a major embarrassment on the night. An attempted back-heeler past an opponent ended out of bounds, he once failed to run down a ball at all and didn't look good on Porto's second goal from Lisandro Alves either.

Doll took Atouba out of the game but didn't want to single him out afterwards.

"Not all players can say they gave it all they had," Doll said. "It's not good enough to start playing when we are one or two goals down."

Back to basics

Doll also acknowledged that he may have to teach his players the basics all over again.

"We will get back to basics," he said. "Man-to-man situations, aggressiveness. We must play with belief in defense and offence."

All that's left now in the final two European games will be an attempt to make a dignified exit, starting with a Nov, 22 trip to Arsenal for a meeting with the Gunners.

"We will not lay down our weapons," he said. "We want to leave Europe with our heads up high," insisted Hamburg sports director Dietmar Beiersdorfer.