Ivan Perisic

Santos thinks his Portugal side were lucky against Croatia

Published Jun. 26, 2016 7:11 a.m. ET

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Fernando Santos admitted Portugal had luck on their side after beating Croatia 1-0 to reach the quarter-finals of Euro 2016.

In a cagey game of very few chances, Croatia went closest to breaking the deadlock when Ivan Perisic headed against the post in extra-time.

Shortly afterwards, Portugal countered and Ricardo Quaresma scored the winner in the 117th minute after Cristiano Ronaldo's shot had been saved.

Portugal will now face Poland in the quarter-finals on June 30.

"This was a final, and we won," said Portugal head coach Santos. "Today we were the lucky ones. But I think it was fair.

"We have a very hard match against Poland and we must prepare for that now. We'd like to play a pretty game but that's not always how you win tournaments."

Portugal had few chances of their own in Lens but snatched victory thanks to Quaresma.

"It was a very tactical match, we tried to take over but Croatia didn't let us," added Santos. "But we didn't let them, either. You must look at both sides of the coin.

"We faced an amazing team, they've played some of the best football in the group stages. They always try to play their type of football."

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