"It was a football game that we honored and we brought prestige to the World Cup," said Iran coach Carlos Queiroz at the post-match press conference.

He added that his players had the discipline and the attitude and should have been the winner of the game.

"It's such a big disappointment for us. We created some chances but unfortunately, we didn't score. We had a big chance at the end of the game, we could have scored and won it," said Iranian player Alireza Jahanbakhsh.

Portugal coach Fernando Santos said that his team turned out better though Iran had their own merits.

"The important thing is to think about the (Round-of-16) match, to get to know your adversaries and then to get well prepared mentally and physically," said Santos.

As runner-up of Group B, Portugal will take on Uruguay in the knockout phase.

"Uruguay have high quality and top-notch players and they're all excellent - but Portugal too. We have our weapons and we're going to try to win," said Santos.

It was the second encounter of Iran and Portugal at a World Cup tournament, with Portugal beating Iran 2-0 in their previous meeting at the Germany 2006 group stage.

An interesting fact is that Ronaldo was the only one on the pitch now that played that match 12 years ago and scored Portugal's second goal in that match at the age of 21.

Some 41,000 spectators attended Monday's match at the 44,000-seat Mordovia Arena, among which Iran fans largely outnumbered Portugal supporters.

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