Paulo Bento has acknowledged that his Portugal side could not recover from the heavy defeat to Germany in their opening match.
The Seleccao lost the game 4-0 and lost a number of players going forward, including Pepe to suspension and Fabio Coentrao to injury, during the drubbing.
Speaking to the press after his side’s exit from the World Cup despite beating Ghana, he admitted that he had no complaints.
“The only thing that could be said,” he conceded, “is that in the end, it was a bad result. We couldn’t reach our goal and after three games, I think we got what we deserved.”
Pointing back to their initial disappointment, he suggested how big a problem it caused.
“I believe we were too affected by the result of the first match,” he lamented. “It left a scar on the team.”
Even after today’s victory, Bento couldn’t bring himself to be too complimentary of his players.
“In the second half of today’s game we weren’t so good,” the 45 year old bemoaned, “though I don’t think Ghana caused us too many problems during the first half.”
