Coach Santos: 'Portugal is frozen'

"We were mentally frozen, especially in the last 20 minutes," Santos said at a post-match press conference. "Players who want to get the ball into the penalty area very quickly, could have played better. We are really sad at the moment. But the generation of Portuguese players is not over here, but will succeed. Future".

Morocco opened the scoring in the 42nd minute thanks to a header from striker Youssef En-Nesyri, when goalkeeper Diogo Costa rushed out without catching the ball. Towards the end of the second half, Portugal kicked more quickly and did not create any really dangerous chances. Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates could not turn the situation around and accept the disqualification.

This is the first time in history that Portugal has lost in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. In the previous two quarter-finals, they beat North Korea 5-3 in 1996 and beat England 3-1 in a penalty shootout in 2006. Morocco became the first African team to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup.

Santos also believes that Portugal lacks any luck to continue, and he has no intention of resigning. "I don't know if Portugal's result is a failure, but resigning was never an option for me," added the 68-year-old coach. "We could have gone further and the players worked hard. But there were days when we were unlucky and today was one of them."

Santos has led Portugal since 2014, helping the team win the Euro for the first time in 2016, and then the Nations League in 2019. He has a group of players who are considered the golden generation such as Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes, Joao Felix, Bernardo Silva, and others. Ruben Dias. But Portugal has not yet progressed beyond the quarterfinals under Santos.

He said before the match the whole team was confident that they would win and then go to the final. "We were confident and optimistic but ended up being eliminated," he said. "We were mentally prepared to face Morocco's defensive wall, but conceded at the end of the first half after a few missed opportunities."

Portugal's next big tournament is Euro 2004, where they will play qualifying from March 23, 2023. They are in Group J with Bosnia & Herzegovina, Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Liechtenstein.