Deco happy to be mature student

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Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has so far refused to rise to comments from Sir Alex Ferguson that Chelsea's ageing squad will struggle to challenge for the title this season, but Deco - who has tasted domestic success in Portugal with Porto and in Spain with Barcelona - believes he can still continue his footballing education alongside Frank Lampard, 30 and Michael Ballack, 31.

"I still have a lot of things to learn, coming to Chelsea is a new challenge for me," said Deco, who turns 31 at the end of August. "We have a strong team and I can learn a lot from them despite being 30."

Deco joined Chelsea following Euro 2008, where he worked under Scolari with Portugal, and is looking forward to a successful spell with the London club after making his debut during Wednesday's 4-0 win over Guangzhou Pharmaceutical.

He played just over an hour in his Blues bow at the Guangzhou Olympic Stadium and is confident Chelsea can build on the triumph, starting with Saturday's match against another Chinese Super League side, Chengdu Blades, in Macau.

"I am very glad to join Chelsea and I am happy after being able to link up with Mr Scolari again and together I hope we can do very good things for Chelsea," said Deco.

"We played very well on Wednesday considering it was our first game, but we did not play that well and we hope to play better on Saturday after being able to train together more."

The two-time Champions League winner also believes the team spirit being built under Scolari at Stamford Bridge will prove crucial in the coming season.

He added: "It is hard to compare two different teams, both Barcelona and Chelsea have very good players, but Chelsea have the edge and have a great team spirit."