The Portugal Match: Figo Is In

Okay so the Dutch are a little sore, foaming at the mouth and perhaps hot-headed after yesterday’s warfare, so lets forgive them and there many recent found false and fake admirers (like the English) and all this one sided biased reaction.
Let’s also break it down and look at it from the Portugal’s perspective:
Ronaldo was a marked man right from the very beginning. He was “softened” right from the worg go, very early on. The very first, malicious challenge on him (3min?) was by Van Bommel whose only intention was to chop the player and not play the ball. This was followed 5 minues later by an extremely nasty challenge by Khalid Boullharz – it deserved a RED card not a yellow. This led to Ronaldo having to leave the field, not before he exacted revenge by beinmg involved in the goal. This is what REALLY upset the game and provoked all the bad taste in Portuguese mouths and led to the other incidents. These two tackles were nothing in comparison to Costinha’s challenges who genuinely mistimed and was late to the ball. In fact no one, not even us fans complained when he has sent off. He could have even been sent off earlier. Costinha walked immediately.
Also by that stage the diving and simultaion had begun in earnest. This was initiated by whom? The Dutch! Robben was especially to blame.
Later during the second half do you think not giving the ball back to Portugal was good fairplay and good sportmanship? Winding them up to do carry on, unbelievably was Van Basten. Is this also not contrary to the fair play rules and signed agreements by the respective national FA’s? Was this at all wise after all that had gone on and happened before in this game?
All the above incidents are provoked and got the proportional response.
I’m not excusing Deco’s furious lunge or Figo’s nose length or head butt (though Van Bommel’s verbal provocation and delayed head butt roll on his arse is also not that saintly) but some Dutch players got what they asked for.
I feel Von Bronkhurst and Costinha were ultimately hard done by, but the other two, Deco and Boullharz got what they deserved in the end.

This football match was turned into a declaration of war by Holland. Portugal went to war and for once we de no whinge about it: we got stuck in, went down to your “gangster” level, and were simply better, smarter, cleverer, in summation - more experienced & wiser warriors. We wore our heart on our sleeve, rode our luck and we were WINNERS!
You were F****D over - simple as that! Don’t expect to beat someone at their own game when you don’t have the built in skills and cynism to know how to do it properly. Figo showed you how that can be done. Stick to what you know best and play to your innate characteristics.

This is ultimately shameful day for Dutch football if you think about it closely - the Dutch have always been known to play attractive and positive football, but simultaneously always allowing the opposite team to play. Yesterday they betrayed that ethos and did honour previous great Dutch players and most national teams of their past - Van Basten included.

Posted from  United Kingdom

What you’re allready nervous about a repeat goal and Euro like peformance?

Posted from  United Kingdom

Will England be able to get their attack together? Will Portugal’s atack be able to make damage in England’s defense? Will the extra containing midfielder in their formation actually contain? Will Pauleta do something more than just drag defenders…? Will Portugal’s best scorer be a defensive midfielder…?

No matter how it goes, just hope it doesn’t turn out to be something like yesterday evening… Just hope it’s a good match (and a victory for Portugal, of course). FORCA PORTUGAL!

Posted from  Netherlands

Don’t you just love these posters that write bad stuff about another team them put the teams flag as their country of origin??? Too Funny. I think there are a lot of people out there very Jealous and of course all the FANTASTIC FANS THAT THEY HAVE

Posted from  Canada

MANIIIIIIIICHE!!! more goals.

Posted from  United Kingdom

On the bright side, this was the most exciting, fun, and brutal game of the whole Cup. Germany/Croatia was fun; USA/Italy was fun. This one was amazing! On the dark side, the match officials are out of control! For example, Italy are getting too many favorable calls for it to be coincidence. Portugal’s game was not World Cup quality. It was crude, dirty, malicious — a natural development considering the increase in diving, drawing fouls and other types of fakery. I agree that Holland were hamming it up and that Portugal did it better than they did. But they have set a dangerous precedent. If the other team is cheating, your team should work harder to keep your game clean and fight for the ball. Beating the cr a p out of the other guy does not score goals. I admired Figo since Euro 2000 but he made a mockery of his captain’s band. He probably saw his “golden generation” doing the death rattle and got desperate. Portugal may have scored a point, but they showed themselves to be losers as sportsmen. They failed to show courage and rise above the bad officiating and weasel-tactics of Holland. This game should be shown as a training film for how to do everything wrong.

Posted from  United States

“Enjoy another dose of the great man’s antics”, huh? You mean like kicking the ball between the legs of an England defender from 40 yards out and scoring on yet another great England ‘keeper? Or maybe we’ll prefer to have Simao put on another show of how he schools England defenses. Or maybe Carvalho will shut you down as he has so many teams in the Premiership. We’ll let you pick your poison. Any way you choose, you’ll still choke in yet another tournament. Forca Portugal!

Posted from  Canada

I heard Ricardo has been practising penalty kicks… Not that he needs more practice, really!

Posted from  Portugal

Ben:

By ‘antics’ I was specifically thinking of the diving and head-butting we saw yesterday. But if he can bring his best game on Saturday then fair play! Frankly, I’d like to see England get a quality opponent so that we can take the true measure of the squad.

Posted from  United States

This game we all saw was definetly not the game what Portugal wanted to play. We did not do this in qualifying nor any previous group match. None of the critics are willing to ask one simple question: What did Portugal benefit by playing this kind of game? All we did was shoot ourselves in the foot really - but at least we did it standing up with alyness and rugged astuteness. With players like Figo, Ronaldo, Deco, Maniche, Pauleta and others why would we ask or want a slug fest? Our advantage is talent, skill, speed, close ball control, and attacking football none of which is possible when you stoop down to yesterday’s level. It’s simple: Only one team had anything to benefit from such antics. And it certainly wasn’t Portugal as much as the so called sore and sour grape neutrals go on ranting and raving about.

Posted from  United Kingdom

“Jesus said we should turn the other cheek. Unfortunately, Figo is not Jesus Christ.”

Luis Philipe Scolari.

I was disgusted by the Dutch… the first foul on Ronaldo was bad… the second was utterly disgusting… and that set the trend…

Shame the Portugese weren’t smart enough to keep their discipline… Figo should be banned… we all know it was a red card offence.

Posted from  United Kingdom

Kaiser Sousa - you took parts of my posts, you punk! You did a nice job though.

Força Portugal!

Posted from  United States

All scared hehehe… Even without deco, costinha and ronaldo we will win again and england knows it hehehe…

Posted from  Portugal

are you fucking crazy??? ENGLAND will destroy portugal today we will have the revenge for the euro 2004 against portugal with the funny penalties and we will show this looser Scolari which is the best team … Scolari go back home to Portugal man you dont deserve to be coach after the match with the Netherlands they were better than you but your luck worked again… NOT TODAY !!!!!

Posted from  Bulgaria

Ronaldo is a cheating pr*ck, nothing more to say, simple as!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted from  United Kingdom