Portugal's captain Cristiano Ronaldo

Before the game, Portugal were in third place with seven points of the leaders Denmark. Unfortunately for Carlos Queiroz and his men, things didn’t change for the better after Saturday’s match.

Debutant Liedson’s late equalizer which cancelled Nicholas Bendtner’s opener meant that Portugal could only manage a 1-1 draw in the end.

A single point is definitely not what the Portuguese wanted. Despite being able to avoid defeat in the latter stages of the encounter, the Portuguese were not the most satisfied with the result.

“Generally speaking, Portugal were the better team,” said Portugal’s manager Carlos Queiroz.

“We had more chances … We created chance after chance, but didn’t score.

“That’s the main difference tonight. Bendtner had one chance and did what we couldn’t do with 50.”

For Denmark, Saturday’s draw almost sealed their place at the top of Group A. For Portugal, the mission is getting tougher every match day.

The 2004 European finalists slipped to fourth in the table behind Hungary and Sweden. The alarming thing here is that Portugal have no encounter left to play against the Swedish.

As a result, if Portugal want to reach the play-offs, they must not only win the remainder of their games but also hope that Sweden lose three points or more from the possible nine left.

(Watch highlights of Denmark v Portugal at the bottom of the home page.)

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