Alberto Mancini, captain of Argentina's Davis Cup tennis squad, said on Tuesday he would remain captain, even though his team lost 2-3 to Russia last week.

"We still have the desire and we have to start again," Mancini told reporters in Buenos Aires's Ezeiza international airport, on his return home with the team: David Nalbandian, Jose Acasuso, Agustin Calleri, Juan Ignacio Chela and substitute Guillermo Canas.

"We have to sit down together, review what we did and draw conclusions so we can be better for the next edition," said Mancini, who has led the team for two years.

"The Davis Cup loss was "a great sadness at first, but later we understood that we had not done this as well as we could," he said.

"We were one point from beating Russia on their home territory and for that reason we have to calm," he said.

Russia's Marat Safin on Sunday won the last point in the series, in a four-set match against Jose Acasuso.

Elsewhere, Nalbandian, the world's number eight player, said hemay not take part in the Feb.9 to Feb. 11 first round of the 2007 Davis Cup, where Argentina is set to face Austria at home.

"The Davis Cup is a very tiring tournament and to be honest I don't know what I will do," he said, adding that Mancini had done great work in 2006 and that he was confident that Argentina would win the Cup in future, under Mancini's leadership.