How the hell was a Swiss referee in charge of the England/Portual game,after England helped knock the swiss out in the group stage.Are they going to put a Croatian in charge of the France game,UEFA has to take a look at itself and explain to everyone why of all the refs its allowing something like to happen. Totally over protected the Portugeese defence with just about every decision going there way,hell he even blew against Rooney for loosing his boot.And as for Cambells goal apart from it not being a foul and the linesman saying it was a goal,he over rules it without being in a position to see it.
At this stage of the tournament, I want the best refs out there, regardless of nationality. This guy is one of the best, and I'm an England fan, but today I've got no complaints.
The only complaint i've got is about the call against Sol Campbell, there was no way that should have been dissallowed.
EUFA also picked a Swede to ref. the Portugal/Holland game. Guess who knocked Sweden out of Euro 2004 in the previous round?
Well I'm a Portuguese fan and the final referee is the family doctor of the Greek coach and knows him personaly for more them 15 years... Still give the man a chance, if he doesn't benefit Greece its ok with me. About the games you are complaining international press agrees Portugal was the best team on bouth, only the countrys eliminated had talked about referees. Holland barelly had a good goal chance... We even scored one for them as a token of our hospitality. In the England match only Cole made a good game. English fans should be ashamed for criticizing Greece. They played as defensive as they could and scored on a mistaked pass by Costinha to Owen (great goal anyway...) and on a counter attack. As to the over ruled goal, rulez say that the goal keeper can't be disturbed in any way inside the "small" box. Ricardo never had a chance to stop that ball since he was crearly, although slightly, blocked. Go Portugal
Even if the refs want to call a fair game, the thought of a potential controversial call will be in the back of their mind. It will affect their judgement.
This is exactly the point and is why Scolari and the Portugese press are up to their old tricks again. They've even had a front page on one of their nwspapers with the the ref. and a pair of eyes saying 'we're watching you..'. Still, I suppose at some point things will change. I mean, they can't play ALL their matches from now on in Portugal, can they
I don't like to be involved in this nounsence kind of arguings. For what I know England doesn't beet Portugal for more then 30 years, I read an article about it not long ago and I think it was not refering only to games taking place in Portugal. Unfortunatly I haven't found oficial records about it in the internet, if you know any site that have them please give me the link. But if you really insist how about the only world cup you'he won. It was in England in 66. For your information you have put the Portuguese team sleeping in wooden beenchs in the locker room of the stadium. The man from the hotel told the reserves for the rooms were "suddently taken" in the day the portuguese team arrived to the city of the semifinal. No other hotel give them a place to sleep. Thats how you have beaten the Portuguese team and got the title. About us you have no complaints besides some nonsence statments about a referee we haven't choose, all international press said we deserved to win, if you don't trust my word read it. We gave you all the hospitality and respect, even Beckam give us thanks for all our dedication and hospitality even after we knew we ware going to face you in the quarters. We won fair and square. You have a lot pride and publicity, you have never achived anything worthy of mention besides the world cup of 66 in the conditions I've already mentioned. For example, you say French have a lot of pride, at least they justified it with results in the past unlike you. For the so called land of the gentleman you have quite a bad way of admitting defeat when you are clearly outbeatten. I let the shots official stats: Portugal - 34 (18*) England - 13 (8*) * shots on goal Do you want me to show the possession stats too or can you find them yourselfs?! This is the last post I'm doing to you. I don't like unfounding statments to argue at and thats all you have given, nothing but perssonal and sided oppinions, thats all you have to contest facts and general international opinion. Last advise: Normal adults use their brain to make a statement. Your's look more like 5 year old kids discussion if the moon in made of cheese or butter.
I've called you on this before. Portugal did not have 18 shots on target, they had 8, the same as England. Posession accounts for nothing when you can't make use of it.
About the stats I've got them form another thread https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2753050&postcount=24
And I got them from here: http://www.euro2004.com/tournament/teams/team=110/statistics.html Come on, even the most blindly patriotic Portugese fan could see they didn't have 18 shots on goal.
You sound upset. Come on, freezer, I was only having a laugh.... that's what the wink icon meant. You're absolutely right that we played badly... well, appalling, more like. Frankly our performances under Erickson seem to be getter worse and worse. He seems utterly gutless and cowardly, certainly compared to Scolari who always seems to make positive decisions, throwing on attacking players when things get tough and not being afraid to kick people out of the team if they're not playing well. Look at Figo, for example. Most English fans think that Beckham, Scholes and Owen shouldn't have been on the pitch after the first 10 minutes or so of the second half but Erickson was too much of a coward to kick out his 'big' names. On another subject, though, we have beaten you quite recently. 1998, in fact. Here's a summary of results between us from the BBC web-site. DATE COMP MATCH RESULT 25 May 1947 F Portugal 0-10 England 14 May 1950 F Portugal 3-5 England 19 Mar 1951 F England 5-2 Portugal 22 May 1955 F Portugal 3-1 England 07 May 1958 F England 2-1 Portugal 21 May 1961 WC Q Portugal 1-1 England 25 Oct 1961 WC Q England 2-0 Portugal 17 May 1964 F Portugal 3-4 England 04 Jun 1964 BJT Portugal 1-1 England 26 Jun 1966 WC SF England 2-1 Portugal 10 Dec 1969 F England 1-0 Portugal 03 Apr 1974 F Portugal 0-0 England 20 Nov 1974 EC Q England 0-0 Portugal 19 Nov 1975 EC Q Portugal 1-1 England 03 Jun 1986 WC Portugal 1-0 England 12 Dec 1995 F England 1-1 Portugal 22 Apr 1998 F England 3-0 Portugal 12 Jun 2000 EC Portugal 3-2 England 7 Sep 2002 F England 1-1 Portugal It's a bit old but can be found here... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/england/2231424.stm Actually, our record against most teams is pretty good. In Europe we've done worst against the Italians but even THEY didn't beat us until 1973 despite their 2 WC wins which were in the era before we took part in such things. As you may know, we didn't go in for WC's until 1950.
As to the shots on goal you are right. Just checked euro2004.com, I was mistaken by the other thread. I was in fact upset because I honestly think we deserved to win and it hurts me to have the merit of the team taken away. We atacked the entire game after allowing a goal by yet another mistake in the defence (Paulo Ferreira also served a Greek attacker in the oppening game, first mistake I've seen from him in his career). One thing is true, as I sayed before, Cole was one of the best players putting a stop to almost any effort of CRonaldo. And your defence looked pretty solid most of the game taking advantage of our constant failure to produce a good stricker. But I still think we wanted it the most. We end the game with only 3 defenders on the field having to use Deco in Right Defence with no subs left after the equaliser. This is probably the most emotional game in the euro. It had a lot of changes in the result and a breathtaking penalty shootout. I would also be sad if Portugal had been eliminated from the tournament on a penalty shootout after such a game but I realy don't think the referee had anything to do with it. The only bad decision I reckall recently in a game between a Portuguese and an English team in our favor was in Man Utd-FC Porto when Schooles 2nd goal was canceled, that would force the game into overtime. Sorry about being irritated but I think we really won the game in a fair way.
You won't get any argument from us about Portugal deserving to win, they did. Our problem is that it looks to us like the ref bottled out of allowing a winning goal.
Ok, if that's your oppinion I respect it but can't agree, has I stated before: " As to the over ruled goal, rulez say that the goal keeper can't be disturbed in any way inside the "small" box. Ricardo never had a chance to stop that ball since he was crearly, although slightly, blocked. " Any way it's over and not much to do about it. Hope we can "open the can" tomorrow and make some goals against Greece. Go Portugal