WC Diary of a Football Rookie – Day 21

England “red-carded” from the world cup 2006

English victory was in the air when the match started. Though there were odd moments of brillance from England, their perfromances in the 2006 world cup lacked team game. Lampard, Gerrard and even Rooney were absolutely lacklustre. Despite this, I wanted Beckham’s team to win. Till the 62nd minute, the match looked extremely ordinary heading nowhere. The defining moment came in the 62nd minute when England were looking to up the tempo. Rooney appeared to stamp Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho for which he was penalized and shown the red card. All the English fans and media cried foul over the incident. But I must say that I was disappointed with what I saw. Rooney probabaly deserved what he got. Fortunately this had a positive impact on the English team and they held on. In fact despite being one player short, English team appeared lot more aggressive and kept Portugal defense under pressure.

The most impressive of the lot during this period were Lennon who replaced Beckham and Hargreaves. The match went into extra time. However, despite best efforts from English players, England couldn’t force the issue and the match headed towards penalty shoot-out. England went into penalty shoot-out with a reputation of having never won the penalty shoot-out in the world cup finals. They held on to their reputation. Gerrard and Lampard, both of whom had an indifferent world cup displayed the same form and missed their penalty shots. To his credit, Portugal keeper Ricardo displayed briallant goal keeping skills and blocked 3 of the 4 penalties. He bacame the 1st goal keeper in the history of world cup finals to have saved 3 penalties. With this effort, he secured a semi-final berth for his team.

 
Brazilian goal keeper looks on as Thierry Henry kicks brazil out of the world cup

If English victory was in the air, Brazil victory was almost a certainty in their match against France. Zidane’s French side had an ordinary world cup till their match against Spain. They disaplayed a pretty good show against Spain but I wondered whether France’s ageing side had any chance against Brazil. But to everyone’s surprise, France caused the biggest upset of the world cup 2006. Through-out the match, the famous four of Brazilian front line – Ronaldo, Kaka, Ronaldinho and Roberto Carlos looked unimpressive. On the other hand Zidane, left his impressions all over the game. In the 57th minute, his free-kick was volleyed into the Brazilian goal by Theirry Henry to the dimay of Brazilian fans. France held on to the lead till the end of the match to earn the rightful place in the semi-final against Portugal.

Will Portugal be able to overcome France in the semi-final? My guess is  a big NO.