Yellow fest, Red defeat, Orange gone

Netherlands' Rafael Van Der Vaart Walks Off The Pitch As Portugal Players Celebrate Their Win After Their Second Round World Cup 2006 Soccer Match this weekend. Three yellow cards were issued out in a contentiously dirty match between Portugal vs. Netherlands. It was ugly, the highlights were awesome. Headbutting, grappling, fouling galore. Fortunately, not too much blood was shed. Unlike the Korea vs. Swiss game where the first goal caused injury on a cross shot head butt goal to Senderos. According to ESPN Switzerland and Arsenal defender Philippe Senderos will not be able to play again for five or six weeks, according the the medical staff of the Swiss national team. Senderos dislocated a shoulder in the 2-0 win over South Korea that saw the Swiss through for a last-16 tie with Ukraine. Bastard took away the dream.

In all, the massive amount of yellow carding and red outs have caused a furor. In the heat of the moment gross misconduct is being overseen and petty mismovements are being unfairly yellow carded. Norman Hubbard comments on the Oranges: "Indeed, the Dutch left back, for an innocuous foul, received a yellow card, the same punishment as Luis Figo got for a head butt (in the Portuguese captain's defence, if you are going to headbutt anyone then the irritating Mark van Bommel is a deserving candidate). "

Further commentary on the matches from the players themselves:

Andre OOIJER (NED) My feeling is we were the better team in the second half. It was an undeserved defeat. We’re headed in the right direction, but we’ve missed our target of making it into the next round. That’s a shame.

PAULETA (POR) We’ve got every chance of beating England. We’re all pulling in the same direction, and we’re an even better team than two years ago when we played them in the European Championship.


Our Korean Red Devil dream was stolen by the Swiss this Friday. The mood at Fox Sports was heated. In my first experience with football fanatics I was entranced in every shout and grunt through each hit and near miss. The Korean drums were silenced by Swiss Cow Bell, and we all know what happens with cow bells. Perhaps it was the lack of red passion as the Koreans were forced out of their colors into white shirts. Who knows. A Yahoo commenter leaves a critical message: "As far as I’m concerned, Korea gave their best performance tonight and they still didn’t look capable of beating the Swiss, who were well-organized and only made two defensive slip-ups that went unpunished. They were down 1-0 in all three games, and as I said before, luck will only last you so long. All-in-all, there’s no shame involved either in the coaching, the tactics, or the officiating. The supposed offside was not called because the ball hit the Korean defender before Frei pounced on it."

The French win on that same day gives Zidane another game to play in the 16. Indeed, this is a lucky recovery from another dumb red card.

As a final ode to Korean artistry and footballing passion, I give you the enigmatic pipe dream performance of Expressions Crew (KOR)...