Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari admitted that his side had given Iran total respect before sealing a place in the knockout stages with a 2-0 win in Frankfurt.

Scolari had been concerned after a 1-0 win over Angola in Portugal's first game, but his side improved to see off Iran and book a spot in the last 16.

He said: "I had to change the mentality of the players. They had more respect and were not as nervous as they were against Angola.

"Today was one of our best performances in the last six or seven matches and we will now take it step by step.

"For the first time in 40 years we had the chance to qualify for the second round and the players knew that.

"For the last match we will now pick our line-up considering injuries and yellow-card bans."

Iran coach Branko Ivankovic was downbeat after seeing his side's World Cup hopes end, adding: "We were making more and more mistakes and just when I wanted to make my substitutions to change the flow of the game, they scored.

"We played a very good game against a strong Portuguese team. It was hard to make something happen against them."