Pepe suffered a broken arm but battled on in warrior-like fashion as Portugal were dumped out the World Cup on Saturday.
The 39-year-old defender was unable to help his nation reach the semi-finals, as tournament dark horses Morocco stunned Cristiano Ronaldo and Co. by pulling off a remarkable 1-0 win. And to literally add injury to insult, the Portuguese FA - which is set to sack manager Fernando Santos - has confirmed that Pepe was informed of a fracture to his left arm following a visit to hospital in Doha.
It's unknown for how long the former Real Madrid stalwart carried on playing after the fracture, but the pain of his injury hurt far less than that of Portugal's shock exit from Qatar. Pepe was so furious that he conjured up the energy to brutally criticise Argentine referee Facundo Tello post-match, suggesting that the official was showing bias towards his own nation - who themselves reached the last four on Friday with a penalty-shootout victory over the Netherlands.
"It's unacceptable for an Argentine referee to referee our game," the Porto centre-back fumed to SIC, as relayed by Record. "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.
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"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."
Pepe later admitted that he didn't see an incident which saw Bruno Fernandes go down softly in Morocco's penalty area late in the first half, which appeared to be the crux of his teammates' anger following their humiliating defeat.
"I didn't see the thing that could have been penalty for Bruno," he told RTP3, via A Bola, with Portuguese appeals coming after Manchester United star Fernandes took a tumble and Tello controversially waved play on.
"We had the ability to win this World Cup. Then we had the feeling of the arrogance of the arbitration team. Argentina will be champion! There were five Argentine referees! What more can I say? Let's see what happens."
