Portugal on Friday qualified for the knock out stage as group winners despite losing to South Korea 2-1 in the final group game at Education City Stadium, Qatar.
Hwang Hee-chan scored the winner in injury time to safe South Korea from the brink of World Cup 2022 elimination.
According to Portugal head coach, Fernando Santos, his side played their best and the defeat against South Korea in the last round of Group H of the World Cup 2022 was his fault.
“During halftime, I told the whole team that every time we got on the ball, we created danger. Not only short passes, but also long shots. But we couldn’t maintain that in the half two. The players have worked hard and the responsibility is mine,” Santos said.
Portugal played easily and went ahead in the 5th minute. Portugal failed to clear the corner and the ball falls to Kim Young-gwon. He was alert and was quick to put the ball into the net in the 27th minute.
“We needed to be more forceful when playing Korea. We tried to explore several strategies to counter the Korean squad, we were focusing on the different wingers and full-back. We created several opportunities on goal, we could have scored more,” Santos said.
“We needed to correct our mistakes in the first 20 minutes, have more quick passes and were having some difficulties and needed to better our game to finish. After that, we lost our organisation.”
“Korea were controlling the game, we lost focus and our players were motivated but we conceded a goal when they were counter-attacking.” he added.
Santos’ side next face Switzerland in the round of 16 on December 6, and Ronaldo will hope to start and play the full 90 minutes.
South Korea, meanwhile, they will now face the runners-up in Group G, which contains Brazil, Switzerland, Cameroon and Serbia.
