

After Iceland was able to defeat Austria on the very last minute of the match in Group F, Portugal dropped from second to third place of their group. But instead of feeling too bad for missing out on Iceland's spot, they felt a little bit of relief because they won't be facing England in the Round of 16 and missed out on the most difficult bracket of the whole tournament. Portugal avoided to eventually face England, Spain or Italy early in the competition.
This was the justification used by some Portugal players after the 3-3 draw against Hungary, specifically #10 Joao Mario who doesn't think his side performed poorly throughout the group stage. For him, the main objective was always to get through to the next round regardless of how they did it. Now that they are on the other side, be believed Portugal will most certainly improve and will compete at a much higher level than they have so far.
Talking to the press after the match, Joao said: "We achieved the first objective - the most important thing was to progress beyond this stage and we did. I don't think it's below expectations, we had the objective to progress and we have. The group stage has proved there are no weak teams. Croatia showed they are a strong team against Spain [a 2-1 win on Tuesday], but let's face the game with optimism and eagerness to keep going."
Photo credit: UEFA EURO 2016