Man United winger says Portugal can leave the World Cup with
their heads held high.
A Cristiano Ronaldo-led
side beat Ghana 2-1 in their final Group G
game in Brasilia, but after a string of missed chances, they were
eliminated on goal difference, with the USA edging second place.
"We wanted a win in order to leave the tournament in
the best possible way," he told Portuguese newspaper Ojogo. "We gave
everything against Ghana to get the win.
"Obviously this is not the World Cup we had expected
because we wanted to give the Portuguese people joy.
"We have good players in the national team and a united
group.
"We have to work harder so that the national team can
do better in the next competitions."
Portugal coach Paulo Bento, though, has admitted his side
were not good enough to progress to last 16 of the World Cup.
"We created a lot of opportunities and we deserved to
win by a bigger margin which would have given us a chance to qualify," he
said. "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."
Following the early exit, Nani praised his manager, who has
been at helm since 2010.
"It's not Bento's fault that we were eliminated,"
he said. "He did a good job."
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