It was a Friday evening game at the Durban Stadium, involving two of the biggest names in football. Experts and fans were expecting a cracker of a game as these two South American giants clashed but the match failed to live up to expectations and ended in a disappointing 0-0 draw.

Brazil were without their star players Kaka who had to sit out due to a red card and Elano who was out due to injury. Nilmar played in place of Kaka and had a good first half but neither he nor Luis Fabiano were able to score.

For Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo was cold and failed to threaten the Brazilian defense. Some of his free kicks during the first half were completely off target. Both teams were frustrated towards the end of the first half and appeared to take out their frustrations on each other, keeping the referee on his toes throughout the match.

Coach Dunga used his substitutions to introduce his reserve players to see if they could give Brazil that elusive goal but it wasn’t to be. Dunga was frustrated throughout the match and was seen constantly gesturing and shouting at his players.

After the match, he told reporters “I'm not happy. We always play to win. We even tried to attack in the last five minutes. Portugal didn't attack. They just wanted to defend. It was a difficult game. The Portugal team defended from midfield back and made it tough for us to penetrate their defense, which we continued to try to do right until the end. We had a quite a few fouls. Nevertheless, we had three or four opportunities on goal”.

This was another match that failed to live up to expectations in this rather dull World Cup. However, Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz was happy with his team’s performance as the draw against Brazil gave them the 1 point they needed to qualify for the round of 16.

Queiroz told reporters that “It was a difficult game. They started very strongly, we had to put on our working overalls but I think we left the match wearing a smoking jacket. There was a fantastic attitude from all the Portugal players. They were great in how they tried to play their football and how they fought.”

In their next match Portugal will take on Spain who finished on top of Group H after a 2-1 win against Chile.