That does not even resemble sense.
it makes sense because you cant say "lol Portugal wouldnt have gone through if there wasnt the third place rule" and assume all 3 games would have gone exactly the same way they did, with all teams in play, had that rule not existed. That assumption is incorrect.
Im not saying they would have gone through, who knows, but if there was no such rule, the teams would play differently, its as simple as that.
its why it annoys me so much (this is more of a club football thing than national) when people cry about penalty kicks not given.
"if we had that penalty kick in the first half we would have won 2-1"
no you wouldnt. I mean, maybe you would, but if you had that penalty kick when it was 0-0 amd you scored, the game is now a totally different game than the one that happened. It would create a new "timeline" if you want to get geeky (lol), you cant just take the same game and magically add another goal from a penalty and assume the rest of the game would be the same