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Portugal coach Paulo Bento has admitted his side were not good enough to progress to the round of 16 of the World Cup.
The Portuguese won 2-1 over Ghana in their final Group G game in Brasilia but exited the tournament because of an inferior goal difference behind the United States.
Portugal could have leapfrogged USA into second place with a more convincing victory against Ghana but did not capitalise on many of their chances.
"We created a lot of opportunities and we deserved to win by a bigger margin which would have given us a chance to qualify," Bento said to Portuguese newspaper Ojogo.
"Of course the balance of our World Cup is negative.
"We didn't achieve our first aim which was to progress to the second round of the competition.
"We have what we deserve.
"The two teams that have gone through have done so on merit.
"Now we must analyse what went wrong and congratulate Germany and the United States for progressing."
Bento did take some satisfaction from Portugal's response to their opening game nightmare against Germany.
Portugal lost 5-1 in their group opener before holding USA to a 2-2 draw.
"In the second and third game we gave a different image of what we are worth than in our first," the 45-year-old said. "As I said, the Germany game affected us, because we played in numerical inferiority, because it was a heavy defeat and also because a few players got injured."
Thursday saw the return of Portuguese defender Pepe to the starting line-up after the Real Madrid player served his one-match ban for the red card he received for head-butting Germany's Muller.
