Portugal versus Netherlands

The Portugal versus Netherlands match was undoubtedly a great feast for high-end drama.

Like a bunch of "unruly" school boys both sets of players went at each other.

Much ado is made of the football hooligans. But here the hooligans were all "on-field" LOL

With 16 yellow and a record 4 red cards churned out by referee Ivanov, the match looked more or less like Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors".

An exasperated Blatter even blathered, "There could have been a yellow card for the referee. He was not at the same level as the players."

He also added, "This was a game of emotion, with high drama but the referee was not consistent and there was a lack of fair play by some players."

Portugal tempestuous 1-0 win over Holland was nothing short of chaos especially in the 2nd half!

With 2 sent offs (Costinha which was well deserved and Deco which was a little harsh: 2nd yellow card for both), 5 cautions and an injury for Cristiano Ronaldo on Portugal's side and 2 sent offs (Khalid Boulahrouz and Giovanni van Bronckhorst: 2nd yellow for both players again), 3 cautions for a whopping 16 yellows and 4 red!

Luis Figo was later cleared and is now allowed to play in the quarter final versus England. And clearly that was a horrible decision for a headbutt on Holland's Mark Van Bommel, with Van Bommel pretending to be gravely hurt holding his face!

I think both sets of players employed a lot of "revenge" tactics. Holland being desperate to win against the Portuguese since 1991 and Portugal trying to break their dismal record in major championships!

Under Luis Scolari the former coach of Brazil, Portugal have been making much progress.

Remains to be seen how Portugal will fare with the injury and suspension of its star players in the coming match against England.