Portugal veteran Pepe suffered a broken arm during the World Cup but kept playing.

The central defender, who is now 39, was unable to help his team get past Morocco in the quarter finals.

Pepe played a key role during their win against Switzerland in the round of 16, while he nearly equalized for Portugal in the quarters against their North African opponents.

The Portuguese FA confirmed that Pepe was informed of a left arm fracture during a hospital visit in Doha after the Morocco game

He suffered the injury during the match, but did not come off, and fumed about the referee post-match.

"It's unacceptable for an Argentine referee to referee our game," the Porto centre-back fumed to SIC.

"After what happened yesterday, with [Lionel] Messi talking, all of Argentina talking and the referee comes here to blow the whistle. I'm not saying that he comes here conditioned... But what did we play the second half?

"The goalkeeper dropped to the ground. There were only eight minutes of stoppage time. We worked seriously and the referee gave eight minutes [of added time]? We didn't play anything in the second half. The only team that played football was us. We are sad. We had the quality to win the World Cup and we didn't manage to. I can bet that Argentina will be champion.

"A very big waste of time, the referee spoke twice with the goalkeeper to put the ball in play as quickly as possible. We always try to play our game, we were true to who we are, we worked hard. I'm proud of that. We fought until the last minute, but we didn't manage to win. Very sad, feeling of sadness.

"90 minutes that Morocco always wanted to stop our game with little fouls. The referee didn't give a warning, not paying attention and that was the game. We tried to play, put the ball on the ground, the balls they recovered were kicks forward and trying to win the second ball. They were then happy to score the goal. But I am proud of my teammates. We did a lot to be able to win today."