A disgrace

Orange - watching the match, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This is how we watch football at home... here at Henk's place, next door, when Holland were playing Ivory Coast.

Now the dream is dead after a disgraceful match between Portugal and Holland, where Holland were virtually robbed of the second half by the cynical and nasty, calculated behaviour of Portugal, aided by an incompetent refereee. We reckon there was not a lot more than 20 minutes of football in the second half despite the six minutes added on for injury time. Each team had two players sent off, but it should have been more like three off for Portugal and the one for Holland as the disgarceful captain Figo headbutted a Dutch player behind the referees back.

On the other hand, the Dutch were no great angels themselves, with Arjen Robben continually falling over in the penalty box looking around for a reaction from the referee. There was pushing and shoving and scrimmaging all over the place.... a terrible sight for such a World Cup - and mostly from the Dutch. Maybe it is all very well picing a youthful side, but these Dutch did not handle the pressure at all well and one felt that a couple of more experienced chaps could have held the team together a bit better.

I think Marco van Basten made a mistake to leave out Van Nistelrooy as this could very easily have been HIS game. His replacement missed three easy chances to head a cross ball into the net, and even moved OUT of the way of one. It is exactly from this position that Van Nistelrooy often scores.

I wonder how long the orange fever will survive here and bhow long the bunting and flags will keep flying. Also half the adverts, or even more than half, are orange related and will probably have to be replaced.

Oh well, there is Wimbledon in the coming week.

In the meantime, England managed to win their match satisfactorily, 1-0 against Ecuador. People had been bleating ot have Beckham dropped, but it was him again who did it for England. Well done. He is not just a show pony. Far from it.

Good luck to England against those nasty Portuguese next week. At least with two players being red-carded, Portugal will not be at full strength. Lets hope at least that Portugal let everyone see more of their footballing skills as opposed to their acting skills.