Portugal and Holland. 2 impressive football nations with an attack minded football met today in the round of 16 at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. All seemed fine as both teams stood for their national anthems. Shorlty after a evenly matched, tense and vigourous game began. With both teams sizing their opponents out in the first few moments, it was Holland that first tested their attack. In the opening minutes a hard shot from Van Bommel from the 22 yard range went whistling by Ricardo’s left post. As the game progressed, Holland showed Portugal that it meant business as both Van Bommel (2′) and Boulahrouz (7′) both were shown yellows for harsh fouls on the talented Cristiano Ronaldo. The latter foul proved to be worthy of a red as it ended Ronaldo’s game after a few attempts of treatment on the sidelines. HOwever Ronaldo, was still in it, albeit in demonstrative pain, Ronaldo at the 23rd minute, controlled the ball, passing it off to Deco where a nifty pass by the Brazilian born Portuguese national, in the box gave Maniche an opening for a solid finish to the right of Van Der Sar. Goal. Golaco! - Portugal.

It appeared Scolari was set to instill his tactics to play a more defensive game and hold the lead awaiting for an Italian style of counter attack, however Holland’s had other plans in mind, and their incessant attacking game gave the Lusitanos very little rest, however they held well up until injury time in the first half where a brain fart by Costinha advanced the decline of this game. Portugal’s defensive starting midfielder could not intercept a high pass destined to Van Persie, and used his hand to block the pass. This foul was his second yellow of the first half and hence the first Red card of the match, leaving Portugal a man short for the next 45. Advantage Portugal 1-0. Lots of hope for Holland.

The 2nd half began as expected with Holland coming on strong and giving Ricardo alot of action in the opening minutes. Portugal were facing a determined Holland +1 side who were desperate to equalize and seek revenge for their 2-1 loss in the Quarter-Finals of the Euro Cup at the hands of Portugal. It appeared that Holland were well on their way to equalizing. A flurry of activity around the Portugal goal at the start of the second half saw Phillip Cocu smash a shot against the underside of the bar and Ricardo unconvincingly shovel a Van Bommel shot round the post.

The match continued with more cautions and fouls. There was everything, cleats, elbows, head-butts, cross-bars, hand-balls, dives and plenty of yellows and red. It was a painfully tense match for all Dutch and Portuguese fans alike. I’ll stop right here in terms commenting on the actual play.

Heitinga’s Anti-fair play:
I think the turning point of this game was when Portugal in and around the 60th minute were progressing into a very fortuitous counter attack that started by seeing Ricardo Carvalho sacrifice his body by blocking a great attack by the dutch side. Carvalho ended up injured on the play at the 18 yrd line of his side and stayed down as Portugal advanced with their counter-attack. The Counter-attack was whistled off as the Russian referee stopped the play as he saw Carvalho needing attention. The play continued with a drop ball at the Dutch 25 yard line. Their was discussion between Figo and Cocu about how they would dispute this drop ball and it seemed obvious to the viewer that Figo was willing to give the Dutch side the ball so they could return posession to Portugal according to the Fair Play style of football. However this was not to be, as Cocu passed the ball to Heitinga, he continued to press down the wing rather than return possession to the Portuguese side. The Dutch side hesitantly took advantage of a 10 men Portugal with Figo well behind the action of play. The ensuing play resulted in a fierce tackle by Deco from behind to stop the unfair-play attack. This was the first yellow of two for Dec in the next 5 minutes, as eventually brought Portugal down to 9 men with his expulsion. This play showed a sign of desperation in the Dutch side that opted to play against Fair Play in pursuit of an equalizer. At this point I think the game changed significantly. It was no longer about football, but about 30 minutes of desparation for both teams to progress to the quarter final. It was a war with one objective in mind no matter at what cost. It was evident the referee no longer had control of the game, and from this point onwards 12 cards were shown to the warriors of both sides.

At the end of it all, it was probably the most exciting and emotional game of the World Cup. Afterall, who even remembered what the score was after all those yellows and reds. Sepp Blatter, FIFA president has come out to crticize the Russian Referee Ivanov indicating that Ivanov was not up to the quality of Portugal and Holland. "The options of the refereering negatively influenced what could have been an excellant football show. The penalizing of yellows was excessive and hurt both teams."