Pepe and Coentrao out of Portugal squad

The Real Madrid pair both have muscle strains but coach Paulo Bento, already missing defender Ricardo Carvalho who was banned from the national team for a year this month for abandoning the training camp without explanation, said he was not unduly worried.

"Overall, our performances have been good, result-wise our record couldn't be better, and now we must reach our objective independently of the squad changes," Bento said after naming a 23-man squad for the Group H home game against Iceland next Friday and the away match to Denmark four days later.

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