The story here was the way the referee completely lost control of the game. He may be criticized for setting a record for the record number of cards he gave out, which topped out at a staggering 16, with Costinha, Deco, Boulahrouz, and van Bronckhorst all sent off for a second yellow, but that wasn't the problem. Calling the game tight is fine, but this was a dirty game on both sides that he couldn't get a hold of. What was amazing was when he'd strut proudly up to give a player a card and behind him a fight would break out. His linesman had to tell him about the head butt Luis Figo threw while he was giving out another card, and then Figo took a ridiculous dive holding his face like he'd been hit with a hammer to get Boulahrouz sent off, to say nothing of the fight that broke out behind his back while he was giving a card to Deco.
I really gave up caring in the first half when in the midst of all the cards flying, an airborne Arjen Robben took Carvalho's cleat right just south of his clavicle, with no call until several more players were taken down and a free kick finally awarded. The Portuguese have a reasonable complaint to complement that one, since the first two times Cristiano Ronaldo touched the ball he was taken down, with yellow cards given both times for dangerous play. He left the game in the first half injured, and while he annoys the crap out of me, this is what FIFA's guidelines to cut down on dangerous play were for, to protect the creative players so we could have a game played at a high level.
That sucked, and the phantom offside calls, and the way the Oranje didn't know what to do with the ball in the Portuguese end all game sure didn't help, like when Van Persie on the end-line faked a Portuguese defender out of his cleats and sent a gentle pass rolling across the mouth of the goal, but since the rest of the team was watching him rather than making any kind of a run to the far post, it just achingly slowly, tantalizingly, rolled in front of the empty net before being cleared well on the far side. By the end of the game the Dutch offense consisted of Robben (and others) running up to people and falling over trying to get a penalty called, just disgraceful.
There were only a couple bits of real football worth commenting on in between the fouls, one was Edwin van der Sar keeping Holland in the game when he was repeatedly hung out to dry by his defenders. He had to do quite a bit of yelling at ball-watching defenders in this tournament, and came up with some brilliant moves to bail them out. Portugal's goal was a nicely done as well, a perfect square pass by Deco to Pauleta who held the ball up between two defenders, and passed it back out to Maniche for the shot. The one really memorable attempt the Dutch had was a Kuijt pass to Robben, who tried a bicycle kick that sadly went right into a defender's foot, and then Cocu played the rebound off the underside of the crossbar, bouncing down right in front of the goal but not going in. I still think Kuijt sounds like it should be Dutch slang for vagina, like "I'm in your kuijt with my kloten banging against your bruin oog," something like that.
Portugal goes on to play England, but they'll be without Costinha, Deco, and possibly Cristiano Ronaldo, who missed training due to injury but says he wants to play against England.
Portugal 1-0 Netherlands
'23 Maniche
Red cards: Costinha ('45), Boulahrouz ('63), Deco ('78), Van
Bronckhorst ('90)
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