or, just as relevant in this match, Portugal 8 Holland 8 (yellow cards) and Portugal 2 Holland 2 (red cards).

Where do you start with this one? roflmao

After a first half in which Portugal deservedly led after a neat goal by Maniche, we ended up with almost certainly the most farcical second 45 you could possibly see.

Costinha of Portugal was taking his half time snack a couple of minutes before his team mates having being rightly sent off for two yellow cards. However, after the break, the Russian referee seemed to have a total breakdown!

Soon after Holland had hit the bar with their best chance in the match, Luis Figo headbutted a dutch player, yet the referee was clearly facing the other way! Even though he didn't see anything that happened, he still gave a yellow card, whereas had he been watching it would certainly have been a red.

A few minutes after that, Figo (who should have been taking a bath by now) knocked the ball past Boulharouz and ran into his arm as Boulharouz tried to hold Figo off. Disgracefully, Figo then fell over like a dying duck and, seeing as he had also already been booked, the referee, instead of telling Figo where to go, promptly sent off Boulharouz!

After that he lost it completely. for the next 15 minutes, virtually every foul committed on the pitch, no matter how minor, resulted in a yellow card. Again the referee failed to send off a Dutch player who deserved it for shoving over a Portuguese in a melee! Then to rub salt in the wound, he sent off Deco for a second yellow card for merely picking the ball up after he'd committed a foul (he construed it as time wasting!). 9 against 10.

For the last few minutes the Dutch tried desperately for an equaliser, but it wasn't going to happen and, to compound their misery, a totally innocuous foul by Van Bronckhorst resulted in a second yellow card for him and a red card too!

A heart-warming image in all of the chaos was to see the three players sent off in the second half sitting next to each other on the steps of the tunnel and having a good chinwag! :D


I couldn't understand what went wrong with that referee. I've seen him ref many European Champions League matches and he's usually one of the best ref's going. Yet here it seems the pressure of the situation became far too much for him and he just totally lost the plot. I have seen cards dished out like that before (in Spain and South America), but usually that was because the players were so badly behaved. Last night it was clear that the Referee had caused all of the problems.


Mind you, it's all good for England, who have Portugal next! Portugal will be without Deco (their best passer), Costinha, probably Cristiano Ronaldo (who went off with a dead leg earlier) and probably Figo if FIFA decide to punish him for the headbutt! roflmao