When Portugal and Holland met in the 2006 World Cup’s Round of 16 knockout stage, no one could have predicted the limp attempt at a football game they tried to put on.
But whilst the two teams failed to play a decent game of footy they produced a fine display in the dark arts of fouling and dangerous tackling. I remember watching the game and thinking ‘this is what you get when Mark van Bommel is allowed to play football.’
Van Bommel started the whole thing by getting himself booked first and then the fuse was lit and Portugal and Holland proceeded to kick the living daylights out of each other for the remainder of the match.
Somewhere in between all the violent behaviour Portugal managed to score a goal but that was not the real story of the match. 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards (both records for a World Cup match) were the stats that made the headlines from this game and you have to feel for the referee who was trying to officiate a game where both teams sole intent soon became to attack their opponents.
It did, however, make for fantastic entertainment and it will be a long time until we see something like this again.