Goodbye, farewell, auf wiedersehen adieu to Portugal. Nobody will miss them for one reason and one reason only. They are cheats. Which is a shame because they have some marvelously skilfull players and are capable of some pretty moments of attractive football.
Yesterday's display against France was close to a new low of diving, play acting and sheer bad sportsmanship. And they deserved to lose. The prime example of this is their attitude to the penalty that won France the game. It was a penalty. Henry skined Carvalho who brought him down. Perhaps Henry, realising he'd been fouled, exaggerated his fall a little, but contact was made and there is nothing Carvalho could have done. He is prone to being pretty reckless in the tackle and he was just beaten by a moment of vavavoom from Henry.
Yet the Portugese players seemed convinced that he had dived. Even to the point where Scolari felt the need to blame the ref for his team's defeat.
Here's the news Phil : your team lost because they never really tried to score a goal. Your team lost because you instructed them to systematically try and cheat. You are the vicitm only of your own foolishness and arrogance.
As against England, the Portugese didn't just dive. They took it further, exploiting the 'sporting' action of kicking the ball out when a player is injured. They are the prime exponents of this. After executing a dive their players stay down pretending to be injured and the game is stopped. On more than one occasion this happened in order to break up the game and stop the opposition's attacking momentum.
The scene that sums up their aproach came last night. Late on in the game Simao, the sub winger got down the left and put over a splendid cross towards the six yard box where two attackers faced two defenders. As the ball came over both Portugese attackers threw themselves to the ground in bids to get a penalty, and the ball trickled away to safety. They never even tried to score a goal by using skill, guile, pace and wit. Their only intention was to cheat. Which coming from players who appear to have the skill, guile , pace and wit to win games by outplaying the opposition is pretty disheartening for fans of the game.
Yesterday's display against France was close to a new low of diving, play acting and sheer bad sportsmanship. And they deserved to lose. The prime example of this is their attitude to the penalty that won France the game. It was a penalty. Henry skined Carvalho who brought him down. Perhaps Henry, realising he'd been fouled, exaggerated his fall a little, but contact was made and there is nothing Carvalho could have done. He is prone to being pretty reckless in the tackle and he was just beaten by a moment of vavavoom from Henry.
Yet the Portugese players seemed convinced that he had dived. Even to the point where Scolari felt the need to blame the ref for his team's defeat.
Here's the news Phil : your team lost because they never really tried to score a goal. Your team lost because you instructed them to systematically try and cheat. You are the vicitm only of your own foolishness and arrogance.
As against England, the Portugese didn't just dive. They took it further, exploiting the 'sporting' action of kicking the ball out when a player is injured. They are the prime exponents of this. After executing a dive their players stay down pretending to be injured and the game is stopped. On more than one occasion this happened in order to break up the game and stop the opposition's attacking momentum.
The scene that sums up their aproach came last night. Late on in the game Simao, the sub winger got down the left and put over a splendid cross towards the six yard box where two attackers faced two defenders. As the ball came over both Portugese attackers threw themselves to the ground in bids to get a penalty, and the ball trickled away to safety. They never even tried to score a goal by using skill, guile, pace and wit. Their only intention was to cheat. Which coming from players who appear to have the skill, guile , pace and wit to win games by outplaying the opposition is pretty disheartening for fans of the game.
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