Portugal’s bid to have one of Deco’s yellow cards from Sunday rescinded has been denied.
Now what shall we argue about?

The BBC condenses comments posted on its World Cup message board evaluating the English performance thus far.
It’s pretty much divided the way the chat here has gone: On the one hand, ‘we are rubbish and lucky to advance’; on the other, ‘who cares how we look so long as we’re advancing?’

Portugal are appealing one of the yellow cards which Deco received yesterday (details)
The way I see it, if you think the ref was shit — and he was — then you have to accept the inevitability that some of his decisions might be reversed.
So we shall wait and see…

Gary Neville likely will be back.
As, it is hoped, will be Cristiano Ronaldo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah: I’m not English and I don’t know what it means and if someone’s not with the squad then they’re against them….
Whatever.
Here are some glowing review of England’s performance from today’s papers. I’ve chosen two. They are absolutely representative of the vast majority.
The Independent
The Guardian
We jackals of the press have [...]

Despite a performance that would’ve done a professional wrestler (and ham actor) proud, Luis Figo will receive no further punishment for his actions in that hilarious carnival freak show that was the Holland-Portugal match.
So we can all prepare to enjoy another dose of the great man’s antics on Saturday!

He revealed that Wayne Rooney and Roberto Carlos had egged him on to score from a free kick.
Whom can we get to give Frank Lampard a similar teasing?

Despite compelling evidence that he couldn’t hit the ocean if he were standing on the beach at high tide, Frank Lampard says that he will continue to shoot in actual World Cup matches.
As it stands, he currently leads the entire tournament with shots at 21 — 9 on goal and none successful.

Despite the fact that he was clearly not in the best of health at the end of the match, David Beckham was the subject of a power struggle between FIFA, who wanted him to chat with the press afterwards, and the FA, who, on the evidence of his puking on the touchline in the late [...]

In my previous post, I didn’t make sufficient mention of this.
That ball was struck to absolute perfection: over the wall, with a slight right-to-left curve, and then dipping to shin-height at the near post.
Mora, Ecuador’s keeper, made an excellent try for a ball that he was screened from seeing. And if he were three [...]