Sunday June 25, 2006
Ohne Holland..
Sports
- Posted by Rob (#1) on June 25, 2006 23:57 CEST
Ohne Holland fahren wir zum Viertelfinal. The Dutch lost 1-0 against Portugal, itself and the referee.
Officially, Holland lost against Portugal. Between the lines, Holland mainly lost to itself. The team had most of the possesion and over a double dozen of goal opportunities, but failed to convert. That's the most important thing to learn from this match. Those who had criticism of coach Van Basten's decision to keep Klaas-Jan Huntelaar have not been proven wrong. The team was far better than Portugal, but if you are unable to actually score you do not deserve to win.
But more was going on. Not only did we already witness a World Cup where referee Graham Poll gave a single player got three yellow cards in one match, tonight's referee decided to steal even more thunder: he caused three new FIFA World Cup records:
Most Red Cards (Game): 4 (2 each) in Portugal v Netherlands, 25 June 2006
Most Yellow Cards Against One Team: 9 (Portugal), 2006
Most Yellow cards (match): 16 - Portugal v Netherlands, 25 June 2006, and 16 - Cameroon v Germany, June 11 2002
He gave sixteen yellow cards (nine of which for Portugal) and four red cards (all as a result of two yellow). He clearly lost control of the match (as did the teams). Maybe he should have given Holland a penalty when they deserved one, or he could have sent off one or two Portuguese halfway the first half, when fair play became a lost concept. Unfortunately Holland followed suit with the aggression, but there wasn't really a choice without proper arbitration.
I maintain that Holland was simply not capable of converting brilliant play into goals and that this is the primary reason for dropping out so soon. But I must note that the quality of referees at this World Cup has been so bad that I would prefer to have those crazy referees from tiny countries back. For some complete unknown from Swaziland I can have sympathy. For so-called professionals not so much. I'm glad FIFA agrees with me:
FIFA President Sepp Blatter said the referee could have been yellow-carded himself after sending off four players and handing out bookings to eight others in Portugal's World Cup 1-0 win over the Netherlands.
"It was a great show with intervention by the referee that was not consistent and (had) lack of fair play by some players."
Oh well. Huntelaar helped us to the Under-21 European Cup, so maybe he'll be the one who can take us to the European Cup in 2008.
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- Tags: football, Holland, World Cup, Portugal, referee, FIFA, Huntelaar
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