World Cup 2006 Blog

Motson's comment re. Carvhalio last night smacked of sour grapes. What did he ever do wrong, save for getting his 'tomatoes' in the way of Rooney's raking studs!?

Yes Ronaldo's behaviour wasn't the best (but he never ever waved a card at the ref, which has been widely mis-reported in the press) but to have a pop at Carvhalio was totally out of order and sums up Motson's World Cup...poor and out of touch. It's time for the Gold Plated Sheepskin to be issued and for him to retire gracefully

It's very funny to see how English people to think they own moral and should alone decide what's good and what's bad.
Fact1 - In the game Portugal - Holland, Portugal comitted 9 faults for wich received 11 cards (it's true you can confirm it). There 4 players sent off in a game that was no more violent than Italy- Germany or even Portugal-England, it was just a piece of very bad refereeing. Ronaldo got injured with a violent and criminal tackle by a dutch player who was not expelef for it.
Fact2 - In the game Portugal - England, witch the referee got himself rewarded with the world cup final (wasn't such a bad job afterall??), Portugal won fairly. What Rooney did is worthy of an animal, when a player in Portugal is violent against a fellow player he tougthly recriminated for it, in England the one who gets recriminated is the player that tries to defend his teammate.
You lost and got bitter, 3 times in a row hurts, i feel the same about the France.

Let's face it, you are being so heavily scrutinised because people expect nothing but the best from the BBC - worldwide.

However, seeing Shearer demanding physical retribution, in the BBC studio, of all places, was a bit sickening. Especially if you think that he will probably be involved in coaching England in the future.

What we would like to see instead is Shearer using his influence to stop the diving and hair-pulling in the England team. Now, that would be a refreshing and positive attitude.

Can the BBC bring back Saint and Greavsie and the current lot were even more insipid and patronising than they were.

Nice backdrop but an opportunity lost for the pundits to build the story and set the scene for the whole tournament..I would imagine Shearer and "Wrighty" are on 10 year contracts and get their own Saturday gameshow by now anyway or a comedy crisp ad

Hansen "for me Argentina, Brazil or England"...no argument about it-and it would seem that decent comment about the 4 semi finallists were beneath them-us mere mortals have never seen a match in our lives of course

Well done to the BBC for blowing a month of prime time telly and looking forward to a series of "Stick one on Shearer"

Eduardo, you deal in stereotypes my friend. I would recommend you look on the world with fresh eyes.

You know as well as anyone else that diving is not artistry and the power and pace of the English game is not hooliganism. We're both out, we both suck, get over it mate.

Fine headline. That's what i like most at the British -their sense of humor!

If the BBC coverage was being imparcial (for what I've read here, thanks good I had other options besides BBC) then I must say that the the one made by TF1 (a french channel) was pro-portuguese,in comparision.

You must be kidding!!!

If you're coverage was unbiased (for what I have read in here)then I'm forced to say that the french one (TF1) was pro-Portuguese. It is funny, isn't it?

There you go again. Ronaldo and his winking. Ronaldo and his diving. Ronaldo and his betrayal to Rooney (poor Rooney!). Who cares if R. Carvalho got hurt as a result of a despicable attitude of an English player? Who cares if Ronaldo is one of the most talented players in the world, if he dives? (as if he were the only one doing this)

Then also the match POR:NED, in which the Portuguese players did awful things. Who cares about the number of fouls Portugal effectively commited? The important it to give away to people the idea of the 9 yellow cards and the 2 red ones the players received. That atypical (mainly due to the referee) match, in the eyes of the media, was perfect to draw the audience's attention to the negative aspects (which exist in EVERY single team of the world) of the Portuguese squad, with which England would be playing some days later.

The request to FIFA for Figo being suspended was a really low-level attitude. He was well punished in the pitch. Should have he had the red card? Probably. As should the Dutch that attacked C. Ronaldo. And what did England have to do with that? NOTHING! Unfortunately for them, they didn't manage to make Figo stay out of the pitch - too bad.

The comments BBC made on the match POR:ENG are a joke. Alan Shearer, who was undoubtedly a great striker which I admired, said awful and shocking things. Shame on him and on BBC for allowing that kind of bias.

For years I've admired Gary Lineker and have always looked to the BBC as the source of fair reporting. Over the last few days (since Saturday afternoon) I've become totally disillusioned with both the BBC and Gary Lineker - as for Alan Shearer you might as well give him a baseball bat and let him do the talking with that, because that's obviously the way he likes to handle things.

To make such a fuss over Rooney's dismissal and blame both Ricardo Carvalho and Ronaldo for the incident is totally pathetic. I don't necessarily think what Rooney did was intentional and I think he is a brilliant and gifted player. However, if a Portuguese player had ended up with his boot in the crotch of an English player lying on the floor I'm pretty sure that several English players would have immediately ran up and complained to the referee. What exactly did Ronaldo do wrong? Surely the only person that can be blamed for Rooney's dismissal is Rooney himself. Full stop.

In almost every sentence that Gary Lineker has uttered to do with Portugal since Saturday he's included "the antics of the Portuguese". There is no justification for this. The Portuguese were no worse in looking for free kicks than 95% of the rest of the teams. As for the match with Holland, the Dutch received as many yellows and reds - it was purely the attitude of the referee that caused such a barrage of cards.

I think the BBC should seriously consider appologising, if not for their coverage of the last two matches involving Portugal, then for the comments made by Alan Shearer following the England defeat. He was inciting violence against Ronaldo in no uncertain terms. Someone broadcasting to millions of people at such a crucial time should be much more responsible in what they say. I can't actually believe that the BBC had him back on for the semi-final match between Portugal and France.

Ronaldo played a fantastic game against France, despite the boos from the crowd. His skill, energy and determination were far in excess of anything that England were able to produce in this world cup. Despite this, the constant focus from the BBC pundits was back to how he "got Rooney sent off". On Wednesday evening the BBC were meant to be reporting on the Portugal v France match not the Portugal v England match. At the end of the match I turned the sound to mute and just watched the Portuguese and French players exchanging shirts, handshakes and hugs.

This is the first time that I have ever been driven to write to something like this.

OmegaSupreme!
From what I’ve heard from your side and your approach to the ronaldo-rooney scene, It turns out that stereotypes are more accurate than ever. It’s a completely different perspective, you focus on the dramatics (witch exist and is a bad thing) and forget the violence (witch is much worser). That’s why I say I prefer the artist (art is not all about good things, it’s by nature full of trickery) than the holligan. We suck, but I still prefer to suck in our own way. At least we share one good thing, we aren’t Spanish!!

I think its interesting that towards the end of the Eng - Ecuador match, Paul Robinson going down at the end of the game for a couple of minutes was seen by Lawro as 'thats very cute, very clever, just give his team mates time to get some water and some rest'...or in other words, TIME WASTING/DIVING. They didnt even discuss wether robinson was injured or not, they just assumed he was being 'clever'... I know what they would've said if it had been a player from any other team, especially if Ricardo did it against France.

I thought John Motson's snipe towards the end about Scolari's substitutions ("not much of a genius now" or words to that effect) showed a lack of grace.

Likewise, Alan Shearer's sneers at the penalty technique of the excellent Ricardo, and his not being able to save Zidane's spot-kick.

Shearer's contributions throughout the tournament have been thoroughly dismal. If only Martin O'Neill had been given his seat last Saturday, and been allowed to make a constructive contribution regarding England's exit, rather than Shearer's idiotic suggestion that Rooney should punch Ronaldo.

Through no fault of their own my children find themselves born and bred in England with a Portuguese father. The World Cup and Euro competitions have become times of extreme mixes of emotion for us. The hype begins long before the competition and we are subjected to constant questioning as to which country we will be supporting. That alone is not surprising but what is surprising is the reason for the asking. A few people are magnaminous, intelligent, compassionate enough, call it what you will, to wish those of us who do support Portugal good luck but the majority become hostile and clearly irritated by our presence. This is all evident long before the first game is played, long before any wins or defeats or questions of gamesmanship. Whereas some of us are more than comfortable with wishing our opponent a good tournament, others will refuse to entertain this idea preferring cheap jibes and something along the lines of “lets see if you’re still smiling after the game…”
We are a decent family with five children, non of whom get into trouble at school who are constantly commended on good behaviour and who consistently obtain above average grades. They all have wide circles of friends. However, following both Euro 2004 and so far during the World Cup some of my children have had to have days off from school because of the incessant hounding following any games that have involved Portugal playing. It doesn’t matter if Portugal win or lose, children and in some cases teachers have been quick to repeat what they have heard the commentators say. Rarely do you hear a first hand account of any match action. This is what dismays me the most that young children are not surprisingly so influenced by accounts of incidents by commentators and press and yet the likes of the bbc do not seem to grasp the responsibility this puts on them.
Unless viewers watch with the sound switched off they are going to be highly influenced by anything that is being spoken over or around a game. This is not rocket science so why don’t those commentators, especially those highly respected because of the fact that they represent the bbc, take that responsibility seriously. To sit down excitedly to watch the quarter final and witness within the first few minutes Figo being booed by the predominantly England supporting crowd as he read a statement on anti-racism when Beckham had been given the courtesy to read the same statement uninterrupted, to hear no comment on this fact during or since by any English media is at best ignorant at worst malicious. Whatever Ronaldo has or hasn’t done he does not deserve the horrendous treatment that he has been subjected to. For heavens sake he’s a human being. Most of the people booing so vehemently, whatever their nationality, would not treat their enemies in everyday life with as much contempt or hound them with such dogged determination. The trouble is if the commentators let this be broadcast without encouraging any debate on whether it is right or wrong for a fellow human being to be treated with so little respect that is the message they put out to children and adults alike as being acceptable.
Whatever a person has done subjecting them to punishment without a fair trial is wrong and not the way for a civilised society to behave. At school today my 11 year old daughter was in a class that had to divide themselves into teams and give themselves a name. One team announced to the teacher that they wanted to be called the “We Hate Ronaldo” team. The teacher allowed this saying “So do I”. I can’t really bare to think how my daughter must have felt at that moment and as I said before this is only one of many constant remarks that we have endured as a family during what could be such a fantastic time of respect and admiration for skill and gamesmanship whether it’s the kind we’re used to not. Of course there will be bad play, foul play but if we can not comment on this with an unbiased well informed, humane attitutude then sadly football and it’s commentating becomes the propagator of much worse misdemeanors. Grow up and think about what you’re teaching the kids about the game and life in general.

I wonder how many people with digital television are using the "no commentary" option?

Dear BBC Team,

since I am german and live in Germany I cannot see BBC. However, the quots from your commentators (Shearer and Lineker) I read through out the homepage and the blogs somehow give me the impression they are not totally objective or that they won't like to tell the viewers how things are in order to maintain their publicity.

I always thought the BBC is very objective, but apperently isn't when things come to football. Or let's be fair, the mentioned people are not objective. I agree that both of them have the right to state their personal point of view, but if things are getting too harsh the resonsibles of the BBC should interfere.

I saw the video clip on the web, where Ronaldos' actions in the ENG-POR were analysed by Shearer et. al. after Rooneys foul against Carvalho. There I heard a comment like "English players don't do this" (or similar)...well, what was with Crouch? He pulled the hair of the T&T defender before 1st goal. What about Owen's dive against Argentina in 2002? I agree that diving is less common in England, but your are not free from it. Maybe Shearer never dived, and Lineker may have been a fair player, but that doesn't give them the right to give the impression english football is clean from dives or antics. BTW I think some of your players WERE antic at the WC (if the word has the meaning I think it has...). Like Beckham and Lampard.

So may I suggest the BBC to hire more retired, english speaking, NON english players as a experts next time? Like Beckenbauer, Cantona, Platini, maybe you get Klinsmann, Schmeichel or someone like that. Could be interesting to hear unbiased thoughts about others or the english team, couldn't it?

No antipathy against Portugal in 2004? Portuguese pubs were attacked. I will give you no antipathy to Brasil in 2002 but then lately english press has been too busy kissing Nike-Brazil feet, somehow losing to Brazil is acceptable because you made them to be superhuman anyway.

Take a good look at the "funny" comments on your daq game. Take a good look at your implicit thrill in being able to report the gutter tabloid´s excesses condemning the form but approving the spirit or not confirming the damning details. Racism is not just disgusting noises and abbuse being screamed at black skinned players, you might want to keep that in mind.

Cheating should always be pointed out and criticized so matter who is doing it. The Portugal team was disgraceful in the match against France and deserved all the criticism they got.

Diving is cheating and needs to be stamped out, not overlooked.

To the BBC (and Paul Armstrong, for the matter):

this WC coverage was the most sad and unfortunate piece of so-called "journalism" I have ever seen or heard.
The words you guys put out here generated totally unacceptable anger and rage against the Portuguese and the Portuguese team.
I'm not going to go over the WC details like diving, cheating, Mr. Shearer, and so on. Enough as been said and those who actually have functioning brain cells can come up with their one opinioin on this issue. Just two things left to say:

1. nobody has stated here or in the 606 when did Portugal win BECAUSE of cheating and diving. Mayb the all-mighty illuminated Mr. Paul Armstrong can shed some light on this issue.

2. Some people only see one side of the story. Being the BBC an agency with international representation and worlwide impact, it's your moral and professional duty to provide CLEAN and FAIR information, no matter what. No other press agency or small newspaper in the world could come up with such rubbish as I've seen in the BBC for the last couple of weeks. Shame on you.

Having said this, the BBC bookmark will be deleted from my computer as of today, and the word will be spread among all my acquaintances.
What a shame...

Dear Cardew Vascular:

The Portuguese team in the game with France was as disgraceful as any other team would've been, including France in that same game!
Our so-called "diving" gave us press-driven criticism that got completely out of proportion. France's so-called diving gave them a penalty that didn't exist, a win, and a final in Berlin. So, BE FAIR WHEN YOU COMMENT ON THIS MATTER!!!

Enough said.

Dear BlueDragon:

While Thierry Henry's fall was exagerated it was not a blatant dive. It was pointed out that it was exagerated but Carvalho caught his leg I'm afraid. The Portugal players on the other hand were diving without even being touched and they were doing it frequently, I don't recall any blatant diving by the France team.

Jealously is an ugly thing,
wake up England!

I have during a few occasions witnessed the English football "fans" more known as Hooligans in their behavior towards the opposing teams.
To be called Hooligans world wide is not a title you would like to have on your shoulders as a supporter.
Instead of understanding the true reasons why the English team have not been able to come far, mainly because their opposing teams were better (for example Portugal) the hooligans desperately looks for scapegoats.
When there isn't anything beautiful to remember from a game the concentration goes on towards the referees miss judging a situation, number of yellow cards given, dives and so on. Last game, Christiano Ronaldo became England’s Scapegoat. Why the jealousy? Is it because he has everything Rooney hasn't, I'm not just talking about his gorgeous smile, but you all know that this guy runs faster than anyone in your so beloved English troop, he uses techniques that Svennis doesn’t know how to name. So cut it off hooligans, with all your excuses, complaining and boo's, and grow up for God Sakes. A good start could be to outline the reality in an objective manner in various media like BBC!
I would like to see some changes, because the rest of the more mature supporters world wide would like to watch Football as it should be, innovative and elegant!

In response to an earlier post from marius......Gary Likeker used to dive many times and they even laughed about it being funny at the beginning of the show recently, Alan shearer was no angel and though not blatently a diver he would always use his "strength" to back into defenders and then when they moved away would fall on the floor to win a free kick. Still cheating i believe. I seem to remember the odd elbow too and one particularily vicious kick on another players head. However they got away with stuff as they were england sno 1s, unlike beckham who was very "new" when he made his mistake against argentina in 98.

The thing i hate the most is Crouchs blatant cheating by pulling another players hair so that he could beat him to the ball, the pundits just though it was funny and thought he should get his hair cut. Without that goal England probably wouldnt have got out of the gruop, but its ok as he is english

If an English player goes in for a hard tackle, he is showing british bulldog spirit, but if a foreigner does the same tackle it is a cynical bookable offence. The English need to take off their rose tinted glasses and try to see every game as a neutral

Well I for one can't wait to see the third place playoff game. One final look at Portugal diving around the pitch.

OK,OK! I just said that because that's what blogs are for... I didn't really mean it. Without all the diving/red card controversy we would have nothing to talk about. Rooney being sent off was probably in Svens plan to take the heat off his departure and get the fingers pointing elsewhere!

Good job France for making it to the final, Italy to win of course.

Fantastic coverage from the BBC of the world cup so far, especailly Ian Wright's comments about cr*pping himself - Classic!

[Joe Cole for goal of the tournament]

James.

I just think in facts portugal won england in euro 1996, euro 2000, euro 2004 and world cup 2004. if u add to the fact that no english palyer or even palying in the premiership ever won the FIFA best player award you will realize what the intections of Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo are.

yep typical whinging....always someone to blame when you lose in ANY sport. Instead of picking on Rooney you have ganged up on Ronaldo. He is ten times a better player than the thug Rooney. You blamed Beckham last time, whose turn will it be in 2010?

I think the Pro-Portugal/Ronaldo posts on here are overlooking some crucial points

- Rooney and Ronaldo both play at the same club, its in poor taste to try to get someone you know personally (a friend even?) sent off and then revel in it. Actually, its pretty awful.

- The Portuguese behaved shamefully in the game against France ... a lot of their players went down at every opportunity and it really ruined the game for me as a neutral. Its not "beautiful" to dive, its ugly and its cheating, sorry.

- Let us not forget the poor taste Scolari showed in refusing to give the customary 10-15 minutes of interviews in English ... thereby pissing off the rest of the world that don't speak Portuguese.

- With all that gamesmanship from both coach and players, you can hardly expect the neutrals (let alone the English) to have backed Portugal to win. I thought the booing was funny and a bit deserved really, but I also thought Ronaldo handled it well.

- Am I the only one who noticed that the English didn't boo the entire Portuguese team? ... they booed just Ronaldo.

On the Flip Side

- The booing got to be a bit much after a while

- Rooney was a real idiot and deserved to be sent off.

- It just idiotic to think a red blooded English fan will be neutral when it comes to soccer that some how involves England (to any degree).

- The English are just doing what humans beings do all the time ... applying "moral relativity" ...
So When its us, its "running out the clock" when its them ... its "time wasting". You can't hold it against them. We're human and we all engage in it at one point in time or another.

In closing ... I'd like to ask on behalf of the rest of the world, that the English and Portuguese both shut up and let us watch the World cup final in peace.
Italy and France are in the final, lets give them the respect they deserve eh?

Absolutely agree with post 34. Ike.

Thats it, the arguments laid out as they should be and fairly as well.

My only problem now is that fans from both countries are too blockheaded and too stubborn to relax their views and come to a compromise.

Hi,
OK, the BBC coverage is not impartial. You will never get this from an English broadcast - and from a German, Italian, Spanish,... oh, and Portuguese, too. Shearers remark was way out of line and he shoud be dropped, till he has fineshed puberty - and Rooney can go right along.
BUT, can some of the Portuguese Fans, Players and Managers please try to get over their infiriority complex.
What happened during the match against France between the 60th and the 75th minute was pathetic. When one of your players went out injured, you were complaining for foul, card and what else. The BBC showed it from nearly every angle and if there was a contact - I haven't seen one- it was definitely not a foul. The next thing was the Dying Swan in the box at about 72 minutes. That was not merely diving, that was a disgrace.
Nobody is against you or doesn't support you, because you are a "small country" - rediculous! Play the football we all know you are capable of and don't get blown over, when somebody is closing a door 5km away from the stadium.
I hope that Portugal will play as well as Italy against Germany to finish this tournament properly.

Paul

The problem isn't so much that your team criticised the Portuguese, but that they are so blinkered they still think England would have won the WC but for a bit of bad luck, some gamesmanship and a Swedish manager. Hence we get Shearer saying, words to the effect that, very few of players from the semi-finalists would dislodge any of the England players from the team - what nonsense! How many England players do you see in a Team of the tournament? They're not bad players, but they're not the best in the tournament and they often played badly. That's got a lot to do with why England aren't in the final, just as the formation and the tactics do. This is why your panellists have attracted so much criticism at this World Cup.

Please realise also that when you and your commentators go on, as you do at just bout any foreign event, about how the host broadcaster is rubbish and it would be better if the BBC were providing the pictures because we're the greatest broadcaster in the world, you sound just as xenophobic and arrogant as your panellists do. (And to answer your question, though I thought you'd have known given that you're out there, the match director for the final is a German, whereas the guy who did your semi-final was a Frenchman - he's also doing your Sat night game. You'd have been much happier with ITV's Tuesday game - the director was an Englishman.)

Is this a competition to see who can be the most hypocritical ?

The English fans about "Portugese antics" obviously do not see the English players diving - they do, all the time.

The Portugese fans who talk about "artistry" do not have to watch Carvaliho every week. Figo's headbutt ?
Was that art ?

Blame managers and officials who allow cheating to go unpunished. Any professional sportsman in any sport will push the laws to the absolute limit.

In support of Janes comment (#16): Having lived in the UK for the past six years and after a fair range of first hand experiences of encounters fuelled by british media 'Hate' campaigns in one way or the other, I would like to stress the difficulties especially youngsters have to go through in this public opinion frenzy.

And let's face it - there is not much more one can do but to critisise those resposible (very politely) and to put on a brave face yourself.
To all those British who care and the British media (which supposedly cares) - as long as you don't show the minimum respect towards your opponents on and off the pitch you will never win anything - because in order to get to the top you have to learn from those who are currently better than you - and learning starts with respect!

And I as a employer of British am genuinely tired of this very British inferiority complex ("we never win anything") combated by utterly inflated patriotism bordering on nationalism (It's always the others who are responsible that it did not work out - wherever they come from).

I think England (footballers, fans, media) needs to go and see a shrink!

From my limited experience of these things, it seems they suffer from a combination of v. low self esteem, and unfounded sense of superiority. So...if we just look at the common symptoms of low self esteem maybe we recognise some recurring themes;-)

Low self esteem, a cause and symptom of depression, anxiety and anger problems.

Low self esteem, a rope that binds; preventing us pursuing our dreams and enjoying simple things that ‘other people enjoy'.

Supposedly, if you are ‘full of yourself' you have little space for anything or anyone else.

However, real self-esteem is not arrogance or self-love or vanity.

Real self-esteem consists of:

# An appreciation of what we can do.

# An honest respect for our own abilities, potentials and value.

# Knowing our strengths and trusting in them.

# An appreciation and open acceptance of our limitations.

# An acceptance of these limitations whilst understanding that some limitations can be overcome.

# An abiltiy not to feel threatened by others successes

hmm...

And as a by the by - I'm just waiting for T&T to start a witchhunt on Crouch - for the hair pulling that put them out of the World Cup - some how I don't think that will happen.

Being Norwegian, and not having access to BBCs coverage of the World Cup, I can't say much about that. I WILL, however, say something about Portuguese footballing antics. Wonderfully talented players, who tend to play a lovely passing game in midfield, but freeze up and/or run out of ideas whenever they get near the 18 yard box, they have ALWAYS tried to compensate for this by thespian histrionics that would be more appropriate in a Mexican soap, or maybe in "The Fast Show." Portugal is not the only country who have been combining fantastic footballing skills with terrible acting skills, but they HAVE been the worst, and they've been so ungenerous both in victory and defeat. I remember Euro 2000, when more or less all Portuguese players were involved in so much violent conduct, that I believ 6 players (and there should have been more) got sever bans. However, Portugal were still allowed to go ahead with hosting Euro 2004.
Now, Rooney's stamp on Carvalho (who himself can be quite nasty at times, but that's beside the point!) was clearly deliberate, and the sooner both he and the English FA own up to it, the quicker they may regain some respect. It must be pointed out that if the ref had called the serial fouls committed by Carvalho, the Portugues might not have been able to reach their objective of ruining Rooney's game, or better, get him sent off. Red card? Yes! Good refereeing? NO! Just like Deco's red card, really. once you commit a foul like that, it's a straight red card (and he only got a second yellow), but I think everybody agrees that Mr Ivanov got the Holland vs Portugal mtch horribly abd completely wrong!

A admirable defence of your players Paul, but I and it seems most people replying to this post still think you are wrong. Maybe time to take it on the chin? Whatever you might think about the Portuguese or Swedish managers or bad refereeing, let's face it MoTD is looking tired, dull and self-congratulatory. A bit like England really.

Speaking of the media, Wayne Rooney's comments about viewing his red card footage reminded me of serial killer Ted Bundy's statement to the press: "Now, more than ever, I am convinced of my innocence."

I'm amazed to still read intelligent sports journalists defending Rooney in today's broadsheets. Talk about seeing only what you want to see.

I have to say that I agree Portuguese players did dive. Having said that we did not do it more often than most teams and certainly did not win a match on that account (like Italy for instance).
I can understand the frustation English feel at this time (specially when it comes to Portuguese: sent out of European and World championships, having to put up with Mourinho and so on). Lets look at facts:
1. English team is average. Some of the so called "stars" (Beckham being the top example) are marketing creations and really their qualities on the pitch do not live up to their endorsement and advertising abilities.
2. With the exception of center forward/stricker position Portugal has a better team and better players than England.
3.England team has no real top class players (the exception being Gerrard who I believe is by far the best english player). Rooney has talent but definetely no class.
4. The Holland match: all started with a brutal tackle on Ronaldo that shoud have resulted in a red. From that moment onwards it was open season!!! Portugal was as nervous and emotional as Holland and as any other team would have been. By the way the ugliest thing on that match (the lack of fair-play) came from the dutch team.

Final word: take you defeat as men and prepare for more as next season another Portuguese will show all of you how to lead a team to victory in the Premiership (3 out 3)and in the Champions League. Go Mourinho!!!

@English Fans

Watch out, you guys should be very careful with screaming for television replays for referees. If that had been used in this WC, you might have been out of the tournament after the groupstage. Remember Crouch against T&T ?
This is not meant to be a provocation. And yes, there are less antics in English football. But PLEASE don't act like you own the real game. You might have the best league in the world. But your national team didn't fullfill the expectations. And now it's awful to draw the attention to other things. Is there even a REAL and Serious discussion in Britain why your national team sucked ? Or is it only about, C. Ronaldo, diving, antics and WAGS ?!?!

Oh, and by the way. Check this out http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=373449&cc=5739

This shows that we Germans also don't sympathize with foul play.....Just to make sure :- )

The original article attempts to take credit for Mark Lawrenson being neutral because he used to play for the Republic of Ireland.

Rubbish.

The fact that he used to play for Ireland when he couldn't get a game for England does not change the fact that he is English, lives in England, and plainly supports England. On more than one occasion in this tournament he has slipped by referring to 'we' when commentating on England matches. If I was Irish I wouldn't be best pleased.

Who is the 'artist'above talking abiut artists! Ha ha ha. Football is a contact sport, a man's game, NOT the pathetic, diving CHEATING games we have seen in this Worold Cup.

True, England are not the most technically gifted team. No-one here denies that, we all know we were not good enough to win the competition.

But we have grown sick of the blatant acting/diving - call it CHEATING because it is - and I hope FIFA act to stop it!

Defending the indefensible puts the BBC in a very poor light. BBC commentators and pundits have acted disgracefully in painting Portugal and Ronaldo in particular as villians. You have turned a bind eye to Henry's antics, praised Gerrard when he dived in a recent friendly, but with Portugal you have twisted every fall and protest as testament that the Portugese are at it.

Portugal's only crime was to BEAT an England side that at best was only average. Sour grapes doesn't come into it concerning how NASTY the English media have been towards the Portugal players. This is just xenophobia.

The BBC should APOLOGISE for their behaviour, but I expect you will not. You lot are a disgrace to your profession!

Typical British shortsightedness again. Lets face it who should give a toss about 22 overgrown babies kicking a dead cow round a park? How anyone can be "gutted" about their national team getting knocked out of an overhyped Gravy Train for players and ex players alike is beyond me, and from what i've read here BBC is just perpetuating the violence caused by this terrible game anyway. I think my dad said it best when he requested the ball be replaced by a can of Pepsi because they seem to be able to do more with it. The other thing that beggars belief is that so many english players can't score from a penalty spot, well why should they care and shed their crocodile tears when they are earning more in a week than most in a year. Glad they don't get a penny of my money!

the thing about sour grapes is that it is rarely admitted to.the hypocrisy of the bbc is stunning.the fact is rooney committed a red card offence;a delberate foul if you ask me.one that was likely to seriously injure his opponent.some people might consider ronaldo's behaviour unsporting but it is not unprecedented not even in this tournament.ronaldo's unsporting behaviour was a misdemeanour compared to rooney's.both players were bad boys but rooney was the villain of the match.everyone except the english can see that!

The unfortunate fact is that the final on Sunday will be competed for by two teams who owe their place to dubious penalties.The fact that they are probably two of the four best teams around is being forgotten. And this will be how most people will remember this World Cup. Diving has ALWAYS happened. Germany, the latest converts, have turned it into an art form - your BBC commentators on 5 remarked that this was the first time they had seen it in the match v Italy. Are they partially sighted???? Portugal are inept at it hence the mass criticism. And the remainder are somewhere in between. Oh! and the English are so poor at it (Gerrard !!) that they are practising it along with penalties. So accept the World Cup for what it is. A circus. With some great acts but with a lot more clowns and acrobats.

“Quite why any of them would be harbouring grudges on behalf of England is anyone’s guess.”!

Wow! What an incisive journalist you are Mr Armstrong. Have you objectively watched any football coverage on TV over the last 20 years? The non-English pundits and co-commentators blinkeredly glory hunt with England because the alternative is working in small time regional sports programmes.

John Motson had been a joke of a commentator for as long as I’ve been watching football. Mark Lawrenceson is a misanthrope who could take the joy out of any game and Ian Wright doesn’t really require comment. Lineker and Shearer are generally good but let themselves down by bitterly shooting the messenger, Portugal. The Golden Generation is a myth. England has 6 World Class players who never at any stage formed a team which could attack and win at the highest level.

I hope you will read all of the heartfelt and honest replies to your short sighted / disingenuous comments and have the guts to apologise for overlooking the sometimes nasty and petty behaviour of your colleagues.

Yesterday there were these news about lots (hundreds, maybe thousands) of English people that have just cancelled their vacations in Portugal because of this Ronaldo-Rooney war. Come on guys, it is turning into a war, isn't this SICK? Perhaps BBC could let me know something: are English always this type of SICK people they look like now? Or is it just a product you made out of them?

I had never had this impression that English were this frustrated, sick about football, whatever. BBC and the other low-low level british press are obtaining a response that may well get out of control. (I thought that sometimes they learn something when they have to pay huge ammounts in court to american stars, but they get on with their stamping in the balls of everybody that makes sell more publicity)

Journalism, what? That's a very strange word indeed. This people cannot imagine what it means. Today's Portuguese newspapers recall the bombings in London last year, with this sense of solidarity due between friendly and civilized countries. They talk about two minutes of silence at noon, in memory of the victims. But at the same time we hear that the English are so mad at C Ronaldo and ALL the Portuguese that they don't want to come here in vacation anymore. Just compare the gravity of things involved, and also the reactions.This is a crazy world!!!

Now perhaps they prefer to go to Côte D'Azur - yeah, go there and see if some French has the humility of speaking English with you, or if you have to essay your lovely S'il vous play and merci complex conversation. SICK!!!

And in the end - like in the Fall, when everything is back to real life:

1) probably C. Ronaldo and Rooney will be great friends in the next season, earning all the money they do and laughing at all these people who made a stupid ridiculous war out of them;

2) the owners of tvs and sites and newspapers have made huge fortunes out of these news;

3) and the regular English guy will still be frustrated at home, since he has been USED in a war from which no good may come to any of the parts involved.

And this time not even with the good memory of a summer vacation in the Algarve.

I am sad for you!!! The victims of the bombimgs are death. But you are still alive. So wake up, do not get into this money-machine which is the media and the publicity, and BE HAPPY!

I cannot believe the Portuguese supporter who are attempting to defend the pathetic cheats who are playing for Portugal. I would hang my head in shame at the way their team behaved. It was disgusting !

I have to say, "witch-hunt" seems a pretty appropriate term. And now the blinkers are well and truly in place, Portugal have acquired a "divers-and-nothing-more" tag which I can't see being shaken off no matter what, and for this they have my sympathy. The negative aspects of their game seem to be the only things sticking in most people's minds (often hugely exaggerated, for example the alleged "hundreds" of dives we are supposed to have witnessed in the semi) with no regard to some fantastic things they've managed to produce in this and other tournaments. You simply can't "con" your way to a semi-final as has been suggested. And while there has been denial of any double standards, this has been evident to me also, and not just the overlooking of unfair play/gamesmanship of English players: we had a really cringeworthy tap-on-the-shoulder-but-collapse-holding-the-face moment from Ballack in the first semi, which was practically justified and condoned by the commentary team - I was expecting them to ignore it but this was far worse. These sort of actions should be condemned - but NOT dwelt upon endlessly - WHEREVER they occur. Sadly though it seems that people (those around me anyway)are now willing the accept this from any other team but Portugal, on the grounds that "it's not as bad as them." If they take place against Portugal so much the better: where I was watching the semi-final, before seeing the replays we feared that France's penalty may have been off the back of a blatant dive. But never mind, everyone was saying, it was against Portugal so they deserve it. I did even hear the comment "Brilliant, give 'em a taste of their own medicine". Nice. What a way to encourage fair play from a country with a suspect reputation, just out-cheat them.
The last 16 Holland game was every bit two-way. But no-one will ever remember it like that thanks to a poor picture painted by the media. I think I had a last-straw moment on the train this morning, overhearing a teenager proclaim that she "hated the way Portugal dived" before admitting she hadn't watched a single game. Says enough really. Tragic.

1. As an expat in sunny Kosovo I cannot comment on BBC TV commentary regarding the World Cup. However we do have 5Live to keep us up to date with most of the matches. Is Alan Green a football pundit or a commentator? Perhaps he should commentate more and opionate less...after all, that is what the co-commentator is for. As for the other commentators...excellent work...although a fixation about players' hair has become apparent during the tournament.
2. Regarding the whole diving affair. One solution is for each country's FA to review the relevant games and if any incident of diving/cheating is apparent then they should fine the offending player/s. Otherwise they would appear to condone such behaviour!!!
3. Concerning getting "stars" on your international shirt for every World Cup a country wins, it seems to me that the only way England will get any more is to go and work for McDonalds!!!. Come on Italy!!!!

Would you please get one of your pundits publicly state on TV that any form of diving / theatrics or cheating must also be punished afterwards with the use of TV evidence. Everyone agrees that it must be stamped out and I feel that this is the only way. If the footballing authorities can use TV evidence to punish acts of violence on the pitch, then they should also start using TV evidence to punish any form of cheating. Maybe then could these antics be stamped out of the game.

What made the BBC bias clear for me was when they showed Miguel’s knee injury in their montage of Portugal’s diving.

I'm looking forward to the Third Place play-off. Portugal have one last chance to redeem themselves and prove to everyone that their game is not about thespian artistry.

One last item, why should the BBC not be biased towards the home nation? We are British. If you don't like listening to it, tune in to your own local radio station.

3 points:

- It was ironic in the extreme to listen to Alan Shear comment on Portuguese gamesmanship. This man has some nerve.

- Why do Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson insist on turning the BBCs coverage into a (bad) comedy act and feel the need to constantly poke fun at players/teams who evidently deserve much more respect than they have been given from this nauseating 'triumvirate' (e.g. abuse of Brazil (particularly Ronaldo), France and Italy during the early stages of the competition. Very little of their put-downs were backed up by proper anlysis.

- Whatever his faults, it seems to have been forgotten that Cristiano Ronaldo actually had the guts to step and put a winning penalty in the net - when did one of England's 'golden generation' last show such nerve?

Its a personal opinion, of course, but I think the BBC needs to take a long, hard look at the quality of its coverage of this tournament before Euro 2008 comes around. One suggestion would be to get rid of Lineker, Hansen, Shearer, Lawrenson, Ian Wright and, bring Terry Butcher and Graham Taylor in from 5 Live and retain O'Neill, Leonardo and Desailly are retained - at least their comment and analysis have mostly been based on fact.

There are a number of examples which have clearly illustrated the BBC's very partial attitude towards England. This is something that I can accept somewhat grudgingly as the panel does consist of former International players who will no doubt be biased.

My main criticism of the BBC's coverage, however, is the clear failure by any of the so called British pundits, rather than managers or ex-managers and excluding the rather excellent Desailly and Leonardo, to do any form of research for this tournament. A few examples:-

- Alan Hansen stating before Italy's first match "I don't know much about Luca Toni so don't know what to expect" - he was top scorer in Seria A with 31 goals, yes 31 the first time more than 30 for around 40 years, last season. There is no excuse for such an appaling lack of knowledge and punditry. If they do not know the subjects of the game, ie. Italian football, they should not do that game.

IS IT TOO MUCH TO EXPECT PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING PAID VERY WELL NO DOUBT TO DO A BIT OF RESEARCH BEFORE A BIG TOURNAMENT - IE WATCH VIDEOS OF OTHER COUNTRIES, LEAGUES, READ WORLD SOCCER OR FIFA WEBSITE, SPEAK TO OTHERS ABOUT THE GAME THAN JUST LAWRO AND JOHN MOTSON??

- Ian Wright's "I don't care cause England aren't playing" - again, why are you on the show unless England are playing?

- Gary Linekar's before the holland argentina game "The argentina, holland group is the most competitive" when both argentina and holland had won their first two games and qualified. Competitive it wasn't if you look purely at results! Use a dictionary to make sure you understand what the words actually mean before you use them.

- Alan Shearer's "Out of the 4 semi-finalists, there would maybe be one player who would get into the England squad" - Come on, Alan, you were a terrific player who I greatly admired but do you really believe that England had a world class squad that struggled so badly to beat the likes of Ecuador, Paraguay and T&T, and one that could afford to ignore players like Buffon, Zambrotta, Nesta, Cannavaro, Grosso, Gattuso, Pirlo, Perrotta, Luca Toni (a good big man who can score goals and lead the line), Totti, Gilardhino, Gallas, Thuram, Sagnol, Coupet, Viera, Makalele, Zidane, Henry, Ribery, Klose, Metzelder, Lahm, Ballack, Schweinsteiger, Lehmann, Kahn, Podolski, Ronaldo, Carvalho, Meira, Figo, Simao, Deco et al if they were English?

Of course not. Clearly, not all of these players would get into the England squad at the one time but surely they are all better options than the likes of Wayne Bridge, Sol Campbell, Jermaine Jenas, Lennon, Downing, Walcott, Crouch, David James, Robinson, Scott Carson...

If not, then we will see the results of the England squad's vastly superior squad of players reflected in the Golden Ball and team of the tournament nominations? Hold on, no - this is not the case, they are filled with players from countries other than England. How can this be?!?

I hope that Shearer is merely trying to ensure that he gets players respect for not criticising them when he becomes part of Steve McLaren's regime and he does not truly believe that England had the 22 best players in the tournament.

The BBC's coverage has been very poor with one or two exceptions: Desailly, Leonardo, O'Neill, Iain Dowie and Gordon Strachan have came across as well informed and also pundits who can actually put their point across succinctly (ok, O'Neill sometimes struggles to do so) and surely their reputation has gone down the pan following the World Cup. Not that ITV is much, if any, better but it does make you realise how good Sky's coverage actually is!

3 points:

- It was ironic in the extreme to listen to Alan Shear comment on Portuguese gamesmanship. This man has some nerve.

- Why do Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson insist on turning the BBCs coverage into a (bad) comedy act and feel the need to constantly poke fun at players/teams who evidently deserve much more respect than they have been given from this nauseating 'triumvirate' (e.g. abuse of Brazil (particularly Ronaldo), France and Italy during the early stages of the competition. Very little of their put-downs were backed up by proper anlysis.

- Whatever his faults, it seems to have been forgotten that Cristiano Ronaldo actually had the guts to step and put a winning penalty in the net - when did one of England's 'golden generation' last show such nerve?

Its a personal opinion, of course, but I think the BBC needs to take a long, hard look at the quality of its coverage of this tournament before Euro 2008 comes around. One suggestion would be to get rid of Lineker, Hansen, Shearer, Lawrenson, Ian Wright, bring Terry Butcher and Graham Taylor in from 5 Live and retain O'Neill, Leonardo and Desailly are retained - at least their comment and analysis have mostly been based on fact.

And it is clear that Martin O'Neill's bias against Portugal was because of Celtic's UEFA cup defeat to Porto. This was evident throughout the tournament and not just on Tuesday night, but to be fair to him in that game Vitor Baia did roll about for a few minutes in injury time feigning injury. However, once again it was not the cause of their defeat. That was their players - Bobo Balde being sent off, Rab Douglas doing his usual and basically handing Porto victory, and their inability to keep the ball.

Alan Hansen i'm not so sure about, perhaps because Benfica put Liverpool out of the Champions League this year?

Surely people can understand the apparent 'sour grapes' as it's impossible to not feel aggrieved at the behaviour on the pitch of the Portugese/Dutch? They and Henry (for his ridiculous dive against Spain) have done everything they can to ruin this world cup while teams like Argentina did all they could to make it magic. The Portugese team deserve no respect for their showing. And to talk of diving/cheating/gamesmanship as 'artistry' is ludicrous and deluded.

Let's be honest your coverage of the France v Portugal match was totally biased against Portugal and in particular Ronaldo. To pretend otherwise would be to insult your viewers intelligence. I have to admit I did expect some negative comments about Portugal, but I was shocked but mostly dissapointed at the level of it all. P.S. Didn't Thierry Henri make the most of his penalty appeal, maybe a bit of a dive, but not picked up by any of the so called studio experts of course.

What Shearer said was wrong for a professional pundit despite the feelings of hurt that many were feeling and the problem that a lot of the nation had already had with C. Ronaldo and his role between the incident and Rooney’s dismissal. At the time it did look like Rooney hadn’t been sent off the stamp (an obvious red card) but for a very small push after being wound up by C. Ronaldo his team-mate and supposed friend. The wink didn’t help matters much either. It confirmed the impression that many seasoned football fans have that he is a talented individual who needs to add a little end product to his technical skill and to curb his serial attempts to hood-wink the officials. Both of which were on display in the Semi-final where he was the best player under 30 on the pitch but also responsible for one of the worst attempts at a dive of the competition so far.

It’s quite easy to say this is all sour grapes from the English but don’t believe for a second that the tabloid headlines speak for the majority of people here. I do hope that that “right winker” stays in England instead of joining Real Madrid, if he shrug the criticism off in the way that Beckham did eight summers ago and become a better person for it I’ll applaud him for it. I also don’t think that the antics of Rivaldo against Turkey in 2002 and some of the Brazilians going to ground rather easy are entirely unrelated to the manager at the time. Portugal have a very talented midfield who toiled in the group stages and the first 30 minutes against the Dutch to provide the creativity to unlock tight defences. We didn’t see much of that since and to see Big Phil complaining that the referee hadn’t bought his sides dives at the end was not becoming of very good coach. For the criticism of Sven G-E and his supposed lack of passion I’m certainly glad we didn’t see him running on to the pitch to remonstrate in a similar manner

UK mass meadia have been MASSIVELY biased. Some worse than others. THE SUN was by far the worst (you can make advertizements of this, hhehe)
With their world cup reduced to Portugal coverage, at one time you could see numerous reports about C. Ronaldo being crucified (although I'll admit his atititude has been less than ideal, but nothing realy out of theis world). THeSun has gone to the realm of direct insult with some suggestions to xenophoby by generalizing some players behaviour to be like that of Portugal as a country.

BBC while not as acid as THESUN online had let their comentators with a loose leach, and that has allowed some rather shocking bias with sugestions of retaliations "they should stick one up on ronaldo" and constant attacks on Portugals image.

What seems to be even more serious is that fanaticizism has a reather similar expression making it look like the radicals speak in chorus with the press.

Theres no racional controll over the press and wich hunt has been rampant.
The press seems to take advantage of the hype to sell Newspapers feeding up readers with rage for some sort of sales frenzin. Its no wonder that their speach often quote the same "clichés" printed by the press.

In britain there is no controll whatsoever on what is published, we have seen this in the past with made up lies after celebrities and even their own royal court. SVEn's sex scandals, governamental classifyed information and for a couple of occasions that I remember off this savage exposure of stories for the sake of sales has been the indirect cause of death of people.

Theres no limits to the speach used in the press, no limits of exposure, and no limits of how far one can go destroy someone elses private life for a good story.
With this whole WC2006 wich hunt the Emglish press jumped out of the sports columns into social agitation.

There should be laws against this, aren there any?

I am surprised that MOTD has been criticised. They are there to cover the match and what was dished up before there eyes had to be commented on for what it was. Of course there are journalistic biases and undercurrents driving them along but on a day in which there was only one game to cover, the content had to be analysed, the football was pretty poor and the story of the game was the excessive amount of simulation displayed by Portugal. That was the theme of their analysis - rightly so - it was the story of the day, not pre-scripted (though expected). This thread has meandered back to Rooney and national stereotypes but the question was about the BBC coverage of the Semi-final. For me it summed up the events of the days football perfectly fairly.

I am very disappointed with the response of English and non-english fans on this post.

Let's put it in plain, the English team were not to the level (and played bad football) and the Portuguese have been experts in diving.

I think that in the future, they should give yellow and red cards to football divers.

As for MotD, they better review their stand. It was a disgrace from the pundits.

Please guys, for once let's agree to disagree and leave all stereotypes (true and untrue) aside.

Thanks

Two incidents of Portuguese play which were singled out for diving in MOTD replays
i/ C.Ronaldo made a (bad) attempt to head the ball from a cross, and there was some contact with french defender
ii/ a Portuguese player clearly fell over after beating a couple of French defenders..that's it .. he himself didn't appeal for anything!

I hope the Portuguese TV stations produce an analysis of the BBC biased coverage. It shows you can do anything with a bit of video editing. And yes, we can expect to see constant replays of Crouch fouling the T&T defender by pulling his hair (?)

re: analysis; I am disappointed in Lineker; didn't expect any better from Shearer. Good idea to employ some other internationals like Leonardo, Desailly (Nb Desailly was impressed by play of C.Ronaldo in the France match!)
Very sad to hear message from Jane re: children in school. Yes, BBC Board should inquire into MOTD coverage, esp Shearer's comments. (Don't think BBC lawyers will have been happy with Shearer somehow).

I am very disappointed with the BBC, which I have always praised for their fairness and unbiased objectiveness back in my country. To be honest I will watch the Sunday final on some satellite channel even a Chinese one would be better.

I am so sick and tired of the idiotic incompetence of the so called football experts that the BBC forces us to listen to. I know everyone is in title to have their opinion. But oh boy, oh boy.

Alan Hansen: Is he for real??? And he writes on the BBC web site as well!!!! Pathetic!!!

Alan Shearer: Biased
Gary Lineker: The glue that keeps them together….

Thanks god for Ian Wright, who although biased himself at least he is funny. Unfortunately not enough to save the BBC. My opinion on the BBC will be from now on more objective too, rather than one of complete trust and respect.

Well done BBC, you have completely screwed up the World Cup for Millions of viewers who are interested in football only and you have lost our respect!!!!

At the beginning of the tournament Kofi Annan famously expressed his envy of the World Cup! He talked about goals - not just the scoring kind but "the most important goal of all - being there part of the family of nations and peoples, celebrating our common humanity". I thought the motto of the World Cup was 'making friends'.

I hope the Portuguese will understand how passionate the English are about football and our country and understand how difficult it was to accept that we only got to the quarter finals and that without one decent diplay of the passionate and attacking football of which we are capable. In a few weeks this will all be forgotten. The vast majority of English people are easy going, friendly and I believe very fair-minded and able to accept critism of ourselves.

As for cheating and violence in football they are both reprehensible. I would rather not win the world cup than win it using either of these means. We must stamp both of these out of our own game without mercy and only then (much more so than winning the World Cup) will we be able to say that football has truly come home!!

Some superb comments above, particularly from Jane, regarding the poor child in the school having to put up with 'We hate Ronaldo' taunts from pupils and teachers, who it has to be said gain influence from the BBC. Being a school teacher, I've heard similar stories to this in the last week and it makes me feel sick. The BBC has to realise it has an important part to play.

Also, if you wonder why the non-English pundits side with the anti-Portugal thing, do you not realise that people who appear on TV seek popularity, and so pander to the masses. Surely, surely, a TV editor can realise that?

Mitchell Stirling - what a great post!

Hmmm, credit where credit's due, but isn't the BBC also the channel on which Ian Wright said diving was justified in an England shirt?

The Portuguese are great footballers, and have played some of the best football in Europe over the years. I think in the World Cup they have not been up to their usual standard, and England and Portugal were both poor in the game. England lost because they can't take penalties, if you can't beat a team that misses 2 penalties you deserve to lose! In fact England played better after Rooney was sent off!
As for stitching up a team-mate ask Sol Campbell about the time Rooney dived over his leg at Man Utd. Oh sorry, I forgot, we don't dive..

PS Jane, I agree with everything you wrote, and I wish I could do something to change the way things are....

oh and after my coments about press deviation let me add something else more specific.

It seems to me that from the moment Portugal scored the goal VS Holland in the first half of the game without any incidents making it to apear the likely adversary for England, the English atention immidiatly focussed on Portugal style of play.

It seems to me that this analysis has been taken into such perspective that the general opionion was already prepared to point out and blow out of proportion the negative aspects.
This became apparent to me with how English suporters speach tends to favour the dutch in that game even though everyone else said they were equaly bad.

"Holland had blame but portugal was a disgrace"

I have read this N times and to me it makes look like a pre set idea that what will remain in everyone minds is that Portugal is the main culprit and that guilt should be carried on further to everything else worng that happens to Portugals adversaries wich are , or course supported by the English press and fans while turning a blind eye for the kind of acts but with the fundamental difference that they allowed those teams to win. The most incredible is that on top of all this portugal is the one to be quoted as doing this kind of cheat progression.

Portugal Won Holland in the first 40 minutes with a clean goal and without incidents. It won England on penalties where Ricardo defended THREE of them while England scored ONE. All because the English players nerves snapped not because portugal cheated or dived. Rooneys incident could have hapened against any adversary. The ball was being disputed without any diving and although there was contact so the same hapened in other matches.
As for the group stages, its funny that the general English collective doesnt even remember we played against Mexico (IMHO a great game), Angola and Iran.

Since when has the BBC had to be impartial when covering England games?! BBC does stand for British Broadcasting Corparation doesn't it? As far as I'm concerned there should only be impartiality when any of the home nations or other countries play each other. I imagine it's the same with national broadcasters in other countries. Anyway it could have been worse.....you could have been watching ITV :)

Well what can I say after reading all these comments, it makes me very sad. They can not all be wrong and you should take them serious and re-build on it.
As a life long BBC promoter against those who would sell it off,I feel let down by the standard of coverage of the WC. The panel appear too smug and matey and Ian Wright is an embarrasment. Your one positive claim was Martin O'Neil and maybe you should regroup around him, he is out of work. Go on seize the moment!

Why is Ronaldo being slated. I saw nothing that does not happen all over the country
and in all leagues over the world. He saw his team mate badly tackled(Excuse the pun)
and he came over to remonstrate with the Ref(Not just him I might add).I certainly saw no imaginary
card being waved in the air which is the bane of many in the UK.
But for some reason, he is being singled out.Are we trying to deflect critism from Rooney or Englands poor showing.
It WAS Rooney who decided to commit this act but he is being lauded and the blame layed elsewhere.
We have a bunch of highly paid, stiff limbed "world class" class who couldnt trap a bag of cement and treat a football
like some hot potato.All games featuring England where devoid of Ideas, showed lack of Skill and Imagination and in fact were pretty dull affairs.
I personally hope Ronaldo leves this shores and go to Madrid where his level of skill and finesse will be much more appreciated.
Its really wasted in this Country.

Just one thought for everyone who says Shearer was inciting violence - his words were, "I wouldn't be surprised if Rooney goes and sticks one on Ronaldo," which is substantially different to, "Rooney should go and stick one on Ronaldo."

As for the 'hooligan vs artist' argument - has no-one stopped to think that both are illegal on a football pitch, regardless of who does it? When Gerrard dived during one of the friendlies prior to the World Cup, I criticised him just as much as I have Ronaldo. Strangely enough, not all England fans are biased to the point of overlooking the desire for fair play!

Personally, I like Beckenbauer's idea that card-waving players should be carded themselves - in fact, I remarked on this very idea to a friend in college yesterday!

I am portuguese and i have been living between portugal and england for the past six years. I feel and i will always feel proudly portuguese but i feel i know England a bit, its vices and virtues and i even feel a bit attached to it these days. It is in that condition, as well as of a football lover, that i write here.

I find this whole 'Ronaldo incident' following England's defeat to Portugal and its subsequent BBC coverage - not the least Shearer's comments as well as last night's- absolutely shameful and disgraceful. It is in my opinion, one more example of how insular and detached England feels and is consequently felt, of how it is consumed by a notion and a fear of failure that impairs its feelings and actions and of its lack of elegance.

I just ask you to see the meaning of shearer's words and the BBC and others's coverage from a pair of Portuguese eyes:

When Rooney clearly went against the rules - not english rules, let me tell you, fifa rules, international rules - what should Ronaldo have done? The poor guy, from a poor small country - that obviously is assumed not to be worth beating england, despite having it done before, after going to the final of the European Cup and a semi-final previously - because it has the 'privilege' of playing for one of the worlds' 'biggest clubs' what should have he done? He should have gone against his will to win for his country, for his will to dedicate the victory to his father that died recently, that was Portuguese, that always lived in POrtugal to whom it dedicated the victory and his last goal and, instead, he should have respected the privilege of 'being in England'. It should have refrained from just pointing to the referee that rooney had actually broken the rules badly, by being clearly out of line. That's how i see it. Or better put, i think this was the excuse that a nation absolutely impared by this fear of failure found to overcome a situation where they clearly didn't know how to beat POrtugal. We did know how to beat you, twice now. Just as France knew how to beat us. Congratulations to them. But to all that still stand behind this dodgy excuse, and sincerely excuse me for my lack of elegance here, a big F@!* O*!, because sometimes you have to stand up to things and enough is enough.

Our team reached the semis and lost yesterday a big big opportunity against France of making history, a deserved mark. OUr reaction? Recognising the French capability of winning, taking lessons from the defeat, getting stronger for the next time and staying behind our team, supporting the team, not trying to find the guilty part. YOu don't deserve Eriksson. And let me tell you, in one thing maybe you are right: we are NOT english!!!

Hugo

I am an Englishman living in Scotland. Even before I moved up here years ago, I felt that John Motson was by far the worst commentator on television. He has got worse over the years, and is now embarrassing to listen too. He apparently starts every commentary from the standpoint that England will win, and if they don't, they have been cheated, not that the other team played better. He is constantly interjecting pointless 'facts' into his commentary. Very tiresome. Scottish commentators are biased too, but not nowhere near as bad as Motson. I ask you to step back a listen to the drivel he comes out with. Barry Davies, by far the BBC's best football commentator ever had to retire, presumably because he couldn't get past the idiot Motson; what a waste. Get rid of him and promote Steve Wilson to No. 1.

it is sick the horror of the inglish press against the portuguese.They are disgracing the football.
#1 A picture of ronaldo publecise in the sun for inglish fans to have their revenge with dard's. Then if the 2 teams meet again and england lose this will get the hooligan's to revenge then they get blame for it.
#2 Portugal won england now they are looking for an excuse, who else to blame the oponnent it's easier than blame our self's.
#3 the bbc commentators are unprofesional they should all be saked, they never gave the portuguese the benefit. Since that game they are always looking in every angle what the portuguese do or don't that is sick we need to learn that we have lost and blame ourself's not the other team.
#4 wenger complaining about diving that all should be punished and think the beggest diver was Henry the 2 dives won both games. Actually he should get a diving Medal.
In a country that is fighting against terrorism and causing all of this in the best game of the world is not on. Bbc should not ever have the right's to a football much.

Reading the comments here and on the 606 message board provides an incredible insight into the psychology of entrenchment on both sides of the England/Portugal Roanaldo/Rooney argument. If I could highlight a few realities.

1. The English, as far as I can tell, are not blaming their dismal exit from the World Cup on anything but their team's poor performance throughout the competition and the tactics employed by the manager. Commenting on other matters does not constitute sour grapes.

2. The nature of Ronaldo's behaviour before, during and after the Rooney sending off is deeply offensive to the English psyche. It is seen as BETRAYAL, which the English regard as one of the most despicable crimes. It's like someone eating your bread and then poisoning your water.

3. Rooney's behaviour cannot really be defended, although there are mitigating circumstances. The incident came about because, unlike many players in the tournament, he attempted to stay on his feet despite being fouled. Did he deliberately place his foot where it ended up between Carvalho's legs, even if the degree of contact did not warrant the reaction? Almost certainly if you study his body movement and the fact that he made very little protest when the refereee showed him the red card. In any case, he is being lined up to receive the severest punishment from FIFA - Blatter's personal comments on the matter and Elizondo's appointment to the final have already prejudged that.

3. Do Portugal deserve the universal approbrium that they are currently receiving? Unfortunately, their notoriety in employing extreme forms of gamsmanship, including targeting opponents with suspect temprements, has a long history and is widely recognised outside of England. It is unfortunate because of the footballing talent they possess, but seems to be innate judging by the inability to curb it, even under the scrutiny of the eyes of the world. It has nothing to do with art.

4. Are the BBC right to comment on point 3? They can't not do so when it is such a significant component of the event - and one which is central to one of the main topics of debate to come out of this competition - namely, what is FIFA going to do stop cheating?

5. Has the BBC World Cup team performed any better than the England team? In terms of personnel, sadly not. A change of management and even a sending off or two might be appropriate.

I am surprised that MOTD has been criticised. They are there to cover the match and what was dished up before there eyes had to be commented on for what it was. Of course there are journalistic biases and undercurrents driving them along but on a day in which there was only one game to cover, the content had to be analysed, the football was pretty poor and the story of the game was the excessive amount of simulation displayed by Portugal. That was the theme of their analysis - rightly so - it was the story of the day, not pre-scripted (though expected). The inclusion of Miguel's injury was I suspect more to do with the reaction of his team mates declaring a foul had been committed when it was blatantly an unfortunate twist / fall involving no oponents. This thread has meandered back to Rooney and national stereotypes but the question was about the BBC coverage of the Semi-final. For me it summed up the events of the days football perfectly fairly.

I must say that I do think a few of the BBC panel have definitely been sulking after the sorry exit of England from the World Cup. For Alan Shearer to state, just before the France v Portugal game , that there have been no good matches in the knock out stage is staggering. It seems, for example, that the BBC panel missed Germany v Italy semi-final, which has been almost universally acknowledged as a classic and has been deemed in Europe as first rate 'Adult football'.

#68 Penny:

We are passionate fans as well, but we understand you are too. However we do not fully understand the reasons for the wich hunt. Englands criticisms made the whole of england look at portugals defects with a magnified lens from the moment we were likely to be your oponents and will continue to be untill the end of the WC2006.

England forgets or wants to forget that the foul play they have spoted is well established in most teams of this WC and only now they remember those problems exist and Portugal becomes the devil impersonated.

Going to give you a view from our fans and the press.
We feel sorry that we lost to france, we hold no grudge even against a team who had us beaten with a controvertial penalty (again!) the last time we met.

But the coverage we gave last night for example was the English press!
There was a show of bad cases of Journalism, BBC is mentioned with the poor and biased perfomance of their commentators. THESUN coverage is displayed as an example of an aberrant case, and we even had a psicologist to analyse the state of mind that can lead to all this hysteria.

Paul Armstrong's defence of the BBC's coverage is entirely correct.
The MOTD team have consistently pointed out divers, both foreign and English. If the Portugese are feeling victimised, that's because your team was the worst for diving and other forms of gamesmanship in this tournament. Sadly, they weren't the only team to resort to such tactics.
Let's hope that FIFA can learn from this and crackdown on it in time for the next World Cup as it is ruining the game.

www.world-cup-blog.co.uk

On an aside, does John Motson get on anyone else's nerves?

I'm sure he's a nice chap, but can an encyclopaedic collection of facts about football alone be sufficient to justify his monopoly of BBC coverage.

And possibly more annoying than this is Motson's attempts to further the advance of human civilisation, by pronouncing players' names in as close proximity to their native tongue as possible.

We were reliably informed at the beginning of the tournament that Nuno Valente in fact is pronounced 'Valent' in Portugal. This self-indulgent pronunciation lasted all of 1 game, with Motson reverting to the familiar 'Valente' for the rest of the tournament!! Why bother in the first place??

And were he to pronounce the Ukranian names as they are known locally, well.....

Football is a game that obviously involves physical contact at some moments.

England play a more physical stlye of play than, say Brazil, for example.

Portugal play a more technical game.

What I've always disliked in football, watching any club or national side playing, is the play acting when the player has been tackled and is trying to unfairly influence the referees decision. Even for my own team, I feel embarrassed when they do this (though I won't share who I support). Even more so is when players feel the need to voice their opinions to the referee in the hope that they can pressurize the ref into making certain decisions. FIFA set out to try and eliminate this from the World Cup but unfortunately there still seems to be quite a lot of it, from most nations as well.

There was a couple of cast iron examples from Portugal in the Por-Fra game that I literally laughed at. I sometimes wonder how players can look back at the video of a game and not feel embarrassed as I do watching them.

They are paid to play football. They should do so.

I think it's unfair to blame the BBC for what was clearly shown during the games (and directed by a non-English Director).

I agree that Shearer's comments were a bit foolish, but he's a retired international player and he's giving his opinion on how Rooney might react given the fact that Rooney's upbringing, with a boxing history, might shape the outcome.

Football is a sport involving rivalry. Where each team should be competing fairly to win. Without a certain amount of rivalry between countries, then where's the fun in supporting your own team?!

The English press do over-egg situations where England are knocked out of ANY tournament, and enjoy finding a scape-goat which in this case was Ronaldo. It just happens.

I personally feel that if there is a scapegoat, it should be Erikson.

Anyway, let's stop all this anti-whatever rubbish. It's only a game after all.

I'm an England fan and I admit that the coverage of the England on the BBC and ITV can be Biased, but name me one country where that isn't the case.

If Portuguese TV didn't go on about what a dirty player Rooney is then I’ll accept these criticisms but I guessing they did.

If you forget all the nonsense that went on with Ronaldo during the England game and look at the France and Holland games in isolation you can see that some of the antics of the Portuguese (and Dutch) players was a disgrace. I don't care what style of football you play cheating is cheating and it is perfectly correct for the BBC pundits to point it out.

I'm sure you can find examples of players from virtually all the teams in this world cup diving including England. It is a stain on the game and it’s entirely right that the BBC football team should show their disapproval.

To Stuard: excellent post!

Maybe Shearer got too many balls against his head and he meant that maybe only one ENGLISH player would be on english squad when Eriksson could have the others you mentioned!

O.K. Mr. Shearer that was a little harsh, sorry for that. But come on, you cannot be serious about that comment you made.

I may be wrong, but by my recollection, many people are misquoting Alan Shearer.
I seem to remember that he suggested he wouldnt be surprised if Rooney 'stuck one on Ronaldo', rather than actually saying he should.
Of course, this is still not commendable commentary, but the sense of it is very different.

just a few lines about the portugal:netherlands display of sportsmanship:
There are 22 professional footballers on the pitch. every single one of them should realise after about 20min how the referee ticks on the day. if you continue to play on in the same style or - in this particular case - even get more extreme as the game goes on, you can't really blame the referee. it's all down to players stupidity!
good example the other way around:
germany:italy
after a few minutes all players on the pitch realised, that the referee is a more tolerant one, not reacting to every single prod. so: no reason to roll around in acted pain for minutes, just get on with it!the result: one of the best matches during the tournament, without much whinging, acting etc.
do not always blame the ref, the responsibility for a good match is down to the players!

In my opinion, the coverage of the World Cup has been terrible. I started the World Cup fed up with fellow Scotsmen going on about England and 66. I finished the World Cup as fed up with the tv coverage as the rest of the Scottish folk. The saturation coverage of England has been too much. Even now it continues, even though England are now back home, and the fact that the ref for the final sent off Rooney means that it will continue into the final.

If Scotland, N. Ireland or Wales had been in the World Cup, I am sure that they would have not had the same saturation coverage and we would not have been getting half time and full time reports from their training camps. Indeed, at France 98, the tv pundits didn't even discuss some of the main tactical and selection issues surrounding the Scottish team, why? Because they didn't even know them. Whereas with England every selection issue is discussed to death.

I am Scottish, live in Scotland and watch the World Cup because it is the World Cup, not because England are in it. Do I support England? No. Why should I? I am Scottish, not English. I can support who I want (Argentina by the way). Do the English care who beats Germany or Australia at sport, as long as someone beats them? No. So don't start having a go at the Scottish either.

As for your pundits O'Neill, Hansen, Lawrenson etc, they know that their job depends on taking a sympathetic position to anything English, don't kid yourself on. Portugal v. France should have been covered in a neutral fashion without English bias. It wasn't, and you are stirring up all sorts of trouble for Ronaldo when he gets back. You are making him a scapegoat for England's exit, when you only have yourselves to blame. What exactly should Ronaldo have done when he sees a team-mate (in this case Carvalho, not Rooney!) get stamped on? Of course he should have a right to complain about it. Of course the Portuguese throw themselves about and dive about, but what is worse? Stamping or complaining? Having said all that, I am not convinced that the stamp was deliberate.

I really don't think the BBC can come to terms with just how pitiful their coverage has been (of the whole tournament really, but especially since England were mercifully eliminated).

Paul Armstrong's comments are nothing short of affirmation that the problem runs deep.

According to BBC punditry: Portugal create nothing and therefore deserve to go out, yet France create nothing (barring one very debatable penalty) but deserve to progress. Why is that exactly?

"Motty's" persistant references to an "alleged" stamp on Ricardo Carvalho were nothing short of embarrassing.

As for Mr Armstrong's defence of his 'extremely diverse' team of pundits:

- Mark Lawrenson may have played for Ireland, but he is English;

- Martin O'Neill has long coveted the England job (or perhaps the ludicrous salary that comes with it); and

- Alan Hansen - a great Scottish player in his day - who responded to Gary Lineker's query as to how England performed by stating: "We were woeful."

Sickening. Here's hoping for a resounding victory on Sunday for ITV in the ratings, they truly have become the lesser of two whiners.

It is only natural that the commentators will be slightly biased towards Endgland and against any team that defeat them. They are only human and will vent their frustrations with comments that may later prove to be inapropriate. We see the same throughout the world, Itialian commentators are especially biased towards their teams on the international or domestic stage. Football is a great game because it brings out emotions in people and this will inevitably lead to errors in judgement. This goes for the players, supporters and anyone else involved in the game. You cannot judge someones character by these actions. In the end we must remember that football is only a game and we should not Vilify someone for there actions on the pitch. I confess that Ronaldo's behaviour and seemingly arrogant attitude have cast a shadow over his undoubtedly skillful play but we should not condemn him for this.

Keep up the good work BBC. Whatever the opinions regarding the comentators the fact remains that the cameras have exposed cheating. I don't personally value the opinions of the commentators, I can make my own opinion regarding cheating which has ruined this World Cup. The Germans are correct in calling for something to be done to end it.

Regarding Rooney, I don't think he should play agin for England until he too grows up. The sending off was actually predicted at half time by Ian Wright so what was the point of even continuing with Rooney on the pitch. It is that which cost us dearly and for that England can only blame themselves.

Cheating is unfortunately defended by those that support whatever country is being accused as winning has become more important than taking part and the loser is football.

I have seen every World Cup since 1962 but after a bright start, this one has made me wonder whethewr I ever want to see another one as FIFA is obviously incapable of organising an event of this size and stature. I think a clear out at FIFA should be the main issue.

So keep up the good work. People can moan all they like when cheating is exposed but the cameras have shown just how extensive it is.

Got to say I'm a bit annoyed about the comments posted here. Five sixths of the British public are English, this website is payed for by the British licence fee payer. All the foreigners posting anti-English comments here are missing the point that if we were a biased, unfair nation then they wouldn't be able to post the comments in the first place.
Maybe as an individual I am biased, maybe my opinion is not neutral, but I pay the licence fee and I agree with what the world cup presenters said, Portugal are a dirty cheating team, the dirtiest in the competition. If this were sour grapes then why in the past, with every other competition we've gone out of wasn't there a similar castigation of the opponents. The answer is simple we were beaten by fair opposition.
One extra point, after every match the video should be analysed, anyone diving, or falsely trying to get an opponent into trouble should be banned for six months. If this happened two or three times I think this type of cheating would be eradicated almost completely.

England did not get knocked out of the World Cup beacuse of Ronaldo. They were knocked out because, as always, we bottled the penalty shoot out and because we were not good enough to score in 120 minutes against Portugal.
That said, Ronaldo's diving throughout this tournament, and before, has been disgraceful and it overshadows his undoubted footballing ability.
It's not just Portugal though (which doesn't excuse them) - Italians, French, Germans and others have all dived at times in this World Cup.
The only obvious answer is to retrospectively punish divers using video evidence - it is too difficult for referees to determine in most cases.

What's all this rubbish about biased reporting? If you want unbiased reporting from the BBC then watch the BBC news. MOTD is a sports/entertainment program for a predominantly english audience. Of course the pundits are biased. I'm english but live in Italy. Next you will be saying that a italian commentator, commentating on Italian TV is not allowed to scream GOLLL!!! for a minute when Grosso put the host nation out because it is 'biased'. Stick to your own TV if you don't cope with it...

I love English club football but am disappointed with the press and fans making a big deal about the Rooney send off. Rooney has a problem with his temper that must be corrected NOW. It seems that everyone in England is overlooking this fact and history. I think that the Ronaldo does not deserved to be black marked for the rest of his life - this was done during that GAME and it is over. Overall, Portugal deserved to be in the last four. England did not show up for the finals - they were a bunch of individuals playing not to lose.

Les, a good point, but I dont think our negative tactics helped. playing the lad out of position merely seemed to rile him. it would me. still no excuse though. I thought Ricardo was the man of the match in the Semi though. with Zidane running him for 2nd place...

#91 yomo

In Portugal the referee was only been criticized of loosing controll of the game and giving the cards on the wrong players (not necessarily on the dutch).

For example:
We reckon deco could have been red carded the first time, but his second yellow was portrayed as ludricous. This event was carefully analyzed and what we found was that Deco had wrongly assumed the referee had stoped the game, wich the later didnt, but also failed to make himself understand, punishing Deco for time wasting. It was also scandalous how the dutch were allowed to puch Deco to the ground when the game was interrupted. The referree also missed Van der saar's abandonement of the nets to hit Simão Sabrosa. Equaly the referee dismissed a kung fu move on a dutch players chest. The tackle on C Ronaldo should have been a straight red as it was a clear leg breaker.

The game could have easly gone to 8 players on each side but then again it might had not, if only the referee had played well his part and give any authority in the game.
The Dutch coach should have been sent away too for ordering a dutch attack on their own with the game interruped, and this is why I think the game degenerated due to lack of authority.

Anyway, I dont think we should keep crying on spilled milk. This is history now.

If anyone thinks that diving is only to be seen on the Continent then you must be mad.

Ronaldo, Drogba and Robben play in the premeirship remember!

Ruined the WC for me. Nothing to do with England going out, that was expected.

A shame the refs could not get to grips with it and make people remeber that fotball is a contact sport and a defendeing player can make contact with an attacking player, not win the ball and it is not necessarily a foul.

The change we need in the game to rid us of this disease has to come from FIFA, Referees, Players and coaches alike.

All very disspointing I think most will agree.

I believe this World Cup has been an excellent advert for football with some fantastic games like Argentina v Mexico and Italy v Germany. There has been a very high standard of skill and most teams have endeavored to play stylish and entertaining football. However, some of this has been overshadowed by the shocking increase in diving and cheating. I saw a game early in the tournament where a player was booked for waving an imaginary card at the referee. Personally, I would like to see this made law that if anyone tries to influence the ref in that way, they should be booked. As for diving, it is difficult for refs as it is not always clear that a player has dived without a TV replay. I do believe the authorities should punish players after games if it is shown they have persistently dived.

The Rooney/Ronaldo fiasco has also left me a bit bemused. I feel many at the BBC have dwelt on Ronaldo's involvement too much. Rooney stamped on Carvalho and for that he should have been sent off. I'm sure if the same had happened to Ronaldo while playing for Man Utd, Rooney would have been the first to complain to the ref. As for the wink, how can we tell what that meant? For all we know, someone on the Portuguese bench shouted encouragement to Ronaldo and he winked as a response but who can tell?

I think we should all enjoy what promises to be a fascinating final on Sunday and look back on an excellent World Cup. Stop the diving and allow football to be played in the spirit and physical manner it always should be.

Good point Les. For England the fear of losing has become greater than the desire to win which is why the team performed so negatively. We have a real problem that must be addressed before it becomes any deeper rooted maybe with an influx of younger talent in several areas.

The cameras have exposed the extent of cheating and it up to FIFA to take the nessessary steps to eradicate it from the game but whether FIFA is even capable is another matter.

I just find it very funny, that Rooney in the most important moments is capable of doing the most stupid things, and everyone says he's and he'll be a great player. Well if he keeps being a spoiled brat he won't.

Of course Ronaldo should be asking the referee to be lenient of Rooney's act, while his team mate was lying in the ground being stepped in the crotch, another great Portuguese antic teached by Ronaldo.

I think that it'll be much harder for Manchester United to find a player like Ronaldo than for Ronaldo to find a club as big as Man Utd to play.

He's young, 21, and he's already been to a Euro final and a World Cup semi final, and I'm sure he'll have time to win a major tournament.

I'm just sorry he didn't score a goal like Maradona's in 1986. As we say in Portugal, if we have the bad name we should get the profit.

I am really sorry to say, but this problem goes beyond football.

This comes from an americaniZation of England where people let themselves down by allowing the media to construct their thoughts..

It is obvious that after the HOL-POR match all the media started firing against POR because of that horrible match. The dutch weren't even mentioned as it didn't matter for ENG...

The ENG-POR was a normal match except for the incident with Rooney. (Yes, Rooney's incident, not Ronaldo's...)

However, and again, because it is in your interest, Ronaldo was the one to blame..

Finally, saying that the commentaries in FRA-POR were unbiased... please, wake up.. Gary Lineker even had a 'Allez les bleus'.....

From my side, I must admitt that I didn't like the fact that we let ourselves down against HOL. I saw that HOL was provoking us, but I think we should have been superior to that. We weren't. However, I cannot accept the blame being given to Portugal as we started we a good attitude despite Dutch violence.

I also didn't like the dives against France. However, they are the same dives Henry made against Spain (1 goal), or Italy against Australia (1 goal), or Lennon against Portugal (no goal, good referee..).

That's it... in ENG-POR I cannot point a finger to any Portuguese player. Yes, Ronald winked to the coach.. In what context? Right, because he framed Rooney.. right....

As far as I know there are precedents of players punished for cheating based on TV evidence - Rivaldo for one. The problem is that this approach only works with extremely blatant cheating, such as diving without any physical contact. In all the "grey zone" cases using video reviews would only exacerbate the whining and sore losing unless EVERY single fall is considered cheating, and then we wouldn't need the video in first place.

However, I do think that the refs could use some form of real-time assistance to better evaluate the circumstances.

I think the BBC were spot on. Maybe Motson was a little over the top, but they got the balance about right.

Yes, Portugal have played some fantastic football in the World Cup, they've also defended well, are well organised and have a good team spirit.

BUT they have un-done all of this with the constant efforts to cheat.

Consider the 2 semi's. Italy v Germany was an exciting, fast paced and often physical encounter. (By the way - England are not the only team who play a physical style). Both sides played to win, and both played fair.

Then consider the next semi final. Thierry Henry wins a penalty after being tackled. Yes, he made a bit of a meal of it, but his standing leg was caught. Aside from that France played fair and tried to stay on their feet as much as possible.

Portugal on the other hand! C Ronaldo made every effort to dive and get players booked. It was such a shame, because when he stayed on his feet he looked fantastic. But his "penalty" appeal was pathetic. If ever there was a legitimate case for retrospective punishment of diving THAT was it.

FIFA will only stamp out this cheating (NOT artistry) by using retrospective punishment.

By the way, I don't agree with villifying C Ronaldo for the Rooney incident, as Rooney got himself in trouble. My opinion of him is based on his blatent cheating in the semi and throughout the World Cup.

I'm not sure why it is such a surprise to everyone posting these comments that the BBC has such a biased method of reporting and analysis. Living in Scotland i have been subjected to it all my life - the BBC and English media tends to forget that Britain consists of 4 separate countries and not just England and this was yet again quite clearly evident in it's world cup coverage. Not so much with it's pundits (Hansen, O'neill etc) but certainly within it's Motson commentary. For example referring to the England team as 'we' e.g. "we have to beat Portugal" simply reinforces the thought that the BBC sees itself as only English, and forgetting that as a Scot i also pay a BBC tv licence. It is the arrogance and superiority complex of the English media that is the main sticking point for me. It is this same superiority complex that makes them think pre tournament that they have a world cup winning team (which was entirely non-evident in every single match they played). It is this same superiority complex that produces the scathing attacks on C. Ronaldo etc when they should be looking slightly closer to home for someone to blame (Rooney). It is this same superiority complex that results in such dismay, disappointment and blame culture when England are inevitably knocked out of major tournaments. Can't England just realise and accept that they are just not very good? - it's that simple. Also, and without delving too deeply into a political and historical argument, another thing that really annoys us Scots (and i'm sure Welsh and N.I. too) is the fact that England uses 'God Save the Queen' as it's National Anthem. For anyone who doesn't know, this is the British national anthem, not the English national anthem. This reinforces the myth to the rest of the world that 'Britain is England'. There are many more examples that i could list given enough time and space - And before anyone makes any comments about me just being a bitter Scot - forget it. I have an English partner, close family in England, and was in fact supporting England in the world cup. I was disappointed with the Portugal result. The BBC and English media in general need to change their attitudes. Please realise that:
1 - England are cuurently just not good enough to win a major tournament
2 - Realise and respect that Britain consists of 4 countries
3 - Stop being so bloody arrogant!!!

Re: Marius, post 89.

Are you asking if i'm serious in that these players would have a very good chance of getting into the England squad?

I hope not. I believe and am very sure that most of the rest of the World / Europe that these players are better than English players - ignore the BBC, Sun, Talk Sport for a minute. These players are all comfortable on the ball, have excellent movement of the ball (which i was truly shocked at how bad England's was), can pass the ball to hurt opposition rather than punting a long ball forward (step forward Messrs Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard).

Alan Shearer was ok earlier in the tournament, but seemed to change his opinions once criticised by players for criticising them and once it became clear that he had been asked to be part of coaching set up next time round and once England went out.

I've only read a dozen or so blogs on here and I feel like I've been watching different coverage and different games!

I am absolutely of the opinion - 100% - that Rooney did not intend to stamp on Carvalho for a start - people seem to forget that he was surrounded by three Portuguese players tugging and pulling away at him, and when finally the foot went down, he had his back to the Portugese defender. It was where his foot happened to fall.

It's not because Ronaldo's Portuguese that I dislike him so much (I disliked him before, he's nothing but a young, show-off, glory boy); it's because he had no cause running up and into the melee to exacerbate the situation. Did we not see him head-butt Rooney at the beginning of the game, as 'a joke'? Some joke, eh? Ronaldo knew what he was doing when he ran up to the referee, and he had the bad sense to wink at the bench when the desired effect was achieved. Whether we'd have done the same or not is immaterial - he did it, was spotted doing it, and now my dislike of him is fully justifiable. Thanks Ronaldo, for giving me more ammo.

As for Shearer not diving? Goodness me! Has anyone watched him play? It's not as if he's a slim, fickle sort of chap, is it? I've never known anybody so cunning a diver as Shearer - it's unbelievable! He was the King of Divers!

Final point: the BBC's coverage. Good on them, that's what I say. I'm English, I want an English-orientated programme to enjoy feeling English, with the highs and lows and ramifications. I don't want neutrality when England play - I want my opinions and thoughts dealt with properly on the box, please. The commentators and pundits have been quick to point out our dire football, and it's not like we don't know this is the case. But I don't need them to be Pro-Scolari or Pro-Lippi (if we're talking about cheating, match-fixing, etc. - and they're in the Final for Gawd's Sake - half of them probably ought to be banned from football by the sound of it...)

Now I'm just stirring the pot, obviously.

I felt for Jane, above, who is married to a Portuguese chap with five children. For her kids to be subjected to that sort of bullying at school is shameful, though unavoidable in one sense I'm afraid. The major damage though is on the part of the teacher who made the situation worse with his comments about Ronaldo. He is merely throwing petrol on the fire - he should be ashamed of himself, truly.

Bottom line is that football is the biggest divider and the greatest uniter in the world. No getting away from that. Not everyone loves it, but everyone has to live with it, just about.

Whilst I would agree that seeing Ronaldo, Postiga, Pauleta, Figo and others in this world cup trip over blades of grass and try to get penalties is disgusting (the game is a contact sport - anyone who wants it to be a non contact sport should try basketball instead), there are a few points that should be cleared up here and now.

- whether it was against Portugal or not, and whether Ronaldo was on the field or not, Rooney deserved red. It's violent play. Full stop. We have seen players sent off for less.

- Absolutely right, Ronaldo did himself no favours through his antics and the infamous wink. Considering he called Wayne his 'friend' in the press afterwards, it would be interesting to hear what that wink was all about.

- England do cheat too you know. Yes - cheat. No it's not pleasant to see Crouch hair pulling, Owen diving (both in 1998 and 2002 let's remember) or, you could say, Lineker diving either (the second, decisive, pen against Cameroon in 1990 seems a case in point - we had all seen you stay on your feet in similar situations before that and after too!). No cheating is not to be lauded in any way - but no gobbing from moral high-ground here please.

- Beckenbauer is right. Get everyone together to get the cheating, diving, card waving stamped out. It stops the beautiful game from being just that.

- On a relative point about Portugal's antics, I think it is fair to say that Portuguese football has been guilty of it. Let us remember the following:
Euro 2000 against france.
World Cup 2002 against S Korea (anyone remember Joao Pinto's attempts to kneecap a Korean and then punch the referee when he was correctly sent off?)
Porto vs Celtic - Uefa cup final.
Deco continually picking the ball up in Champions League matches and petulantly kicking it away/other antics?
TRUE: let us not single Portugal out for it, but let's be fair: they've hardly helped themselves over the past few years.

The main reason we didn't beat Portugal of course, is that we weren't good enough. However, neither Portugal nor England were good enough for the semis I believe. There were better teams who exited earlier.

I'm no fan of Ronaldo but any English player who saw someone stamp on a colleagues knackers would react the same way - FACT

As for the wink, for all we know he may have had a call from the bench to rully push forward as they had the advantage now. The pictures prove nothing.

The BBC's coverage of the semi-final was embarassing to watch. It reeked of sour grapes and left me wondering who from the panel I still have any respect for as pundits as well as commentators.

I never saw a great deal of comment on Henry making the most of the challenge to win the penalty, I'm sure if it was Ronaldo things would've been presented in a very different light.

I wish all you Portugese would get over it. Rooney did not intentionally stamp on Carvalho, so to describe him as an "animal" etc.is a disgrace as he was only trying to hold off several portugese players - all of which would have gone to ground to win a free kick if the roles were reversed.
Ok England were not great, but we are only bitter as Portugal were a poor team - not good enough to score past us for an hour against 10 men, and France could have defended all night. Scolari is also overrated as a coach - he plays Pauleta every game!

Paul Robertson you are wrong! Actually a lot of English people turned their support to Germany after we were knocked out because of the warmth and friendliness the Germans showed us. Also dont exaggerate the antagonism we feel to the Australians - you only have to think back to how the Ashes was played in such a good sporting spirit. Also if Scotland, Wales or Ireland had been in the World Cup most of us English would have been supporting them!!

Personally as an Englishman i feel ashamed at how the media have whipped up this anti-portuguese frenzy. that is where it has come from. The BBC should make a public apology on behalf Alan Shearer for his comments made. I say on behalf as he should be removed immediately.

all it does is to divert attention from the fact that our team were hopelessly inept at the world cup and none of our players performed to expected levels.

Oh sorry...i forgot....owen hargreaves who was a subject of ridicule for the media justified his inclusion - something that having watched him in the bundesliga countless times was not suprised to see.

Ronaldo was better than any of our players in this tournament and if i was him would jump at the chance to go to madrid*

* as a Liverpool fan i can't understand anyone would want to play for ManUre anyway ;)

My friend and I watching the game on Wednesday wondered how long into the commentary before the commentators would start talking about England: we were utterly unsurprised when it took less than 5 minutes. The Portugal-Holland game started with a dreadful foul on C. Ronaldo which the referee should have shown a red card. The Portugese played exteremely well in the first half, as I seem to recall being said at the time. It's widely regarded that the referee's antics led to the game getting out of control and becoming awful. The England game featured an appalling foul by Rooney, which quite rightly earned what I think was the first direct red card of the tournament.
There was a ridiculous comment made on one of the channels "From England's perspective, you have to wonder why any of these four teams have to win the world cup", speaking of the semi-finallists. Scottish Tennis star Andy Murray recieved hate mail saying he should have died in the Dunblane massacre that took place at his primary school for not supporting England. Cristinao Ronaldo has played some brilliant football and showed great resolve, but for supporting his attacked teammate, he gets hit by Rooney and then pilloried by the press. The anti-non-England sentiment is terrible. The BBC should provide, through its digital service, an alternate commentry featuring people who are Scottish or something and support the opponents of England, for the sake of balance.

What we don't like is the way Ronaldo gets pilloried for winking (to whom and for what reason we do not know), while not a sound is made about Rooney stamping with football boots on a person's testicles! Why is there not a sound made? Because he is "your golden boy" and therefore beyond criticism, because one day, just maybe, he might win you the world cup (in your dreams). In fact, he should be in jail.

And as for why your non-English commentators should be biased towards England, have you considered the possibility of self-interest? Since the BBC tries to encourage the myth about England going all the way (also for self-interest, i.e., viewing figures), then why would they employ anyone who did not toe the party line?

Finally, what about Peter Crouch? Are we ever going to hear anything about how he cheated for his one and only 'goal'? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2WxxwYBvrk&search=peter%20crouch%20trinidad You could probably get better footage from German TV if you need it, although I don't imagine you would have the bottle to show it.

Following the defeat of England by Portugal, MOTD panellists and presenter took an explicit 'anyone but Portugal' stance towards who they would prefer to win the World Cup.

That is bias, pure and simple. Were it the case that Portugal was by far the worst offender when it came to fouling, diving, and cheating, that would be just about understandible, although unbecoming of an organisation like the BBC.

However, Portugal were no worse than most other teams. Personally, I was sickened by the site of Thierry Henry clutching his face in agony after Carlos Puyol blocked him in the chest during the France v Spain game. Yet, that apparently pales by comparison to Ronaldo's wink on Saturday. I was also appalled by Henry's swan-like dive for the penalty (after he'd made sure he couldn't retrieve the ball). That was glossed over by the pundits too.

The pundits made no bones about their delight at seeing Portugal lose, despite being the better team in the semi-final. I honestly thought I'd been watching a different match when I listened to their reaction.

To hear messrs Linekar and Shearer complain about diving and conning the referee made me heartily ill. Has Linekar forgotten Cameroon in 1990?

The BBC has dropped significantly in my estimation as a medium for watching football. Thankfully FiveLive, and Alan Green in particualr are still excellent. At least Greeny had the courage to say that he thought Henry dived and it shouldn't have been a penalty.

Yes Portugues players dive, foul, and con the referee. But so do English players. How many times did we see Premiership matches last season blighted by diving and in particular, players surrounding the referee trying to get another player sent off.

Finally, Jane, your post #14 was superb. I really feel for you. As a Scot living in England with one daughter at school and a son due to start in a couple of years, I pray that Scotland don't ever knock England out of a major tournament (not that Scotland is ever likely to qualify again) or otherwise upset a MOTD panel.

Bizarre reading this, I am confused at how people see this. England deserved to go out, some great players but poorly managed and dissorganised and I dont think that most England fans felt this was a world cup winning team. Why are so many people saying we are poor loosers, everyone I know is quite accepting of the defeat.
Rooney deserved to be sent off, though Im' not as convinced as others that it was deliberate, he wasnt looking at the player and he was trying to accelerate away in the other direction. Christian Ronaldo is a good player but in the France match was clearly trying to get a penalty by simulation. I can only assume he was frustrated at his teams inability to score goals, at no time in either game other than when Barthez attempted to give Figo a goal did I ever think 'Portugal are in here'. I actually think that the vitriol from these responses is anti English xenophobia because we point out that people in a team are cheating, theres no art in that. I also laugh at the suggestion that the Portugal team were amongst the most skillful, some good passing but Mexico, Argentina and Germany looked much better sides as did Italy in the one game.

Delighted that so many people have criticised the BBC coverage of the France/Portugal game. Gary Lineker right from the start made a "come on Les Bleus" joke and it went downhill from there. I thought of all the Portugese people living here who tuned in to support their side on a historic occasion for such a small nation and basically heard them being ridiculed and insulted all night. The BBC should be better than that. Shearer was hilarious, calling Portugal, a team unbeaten since Euro 2004, a poor side! He even suggested England, a team unable to win in Northern Ireland, should have been in the final! As for the comments that non English pundits didn't have an axe to grind, They just followed Lineker and gave the tabloid reading viewers what they wanted.

It's no good to say it was just about the Portugese antics. It had everything to do with them winning against England. 3 weeks ago none of the pundits would have wanted the French to win. All of a sudden the home of Messrs Vierra, Henry and Pires are the good guys. It is unbelievable that people can spin an incident to make someone talking to a referee more reprehensible than a player stamping on someone. It could only happen here.

It's the English culture to defend our lads and blame foreigners. That's why we never improve, there's always an excuse and we convince ourselves we were just unlucky. Consequently we will never win anything. Good to see the ref from England/Portugal got the Final. He did well.

Baz says 'Just one thought for everyone who says Shearer was inciting violence - his words were, "I wouldn't be surprised if Rooney goes and sticks one on Ronaldo," which is substantially different to, "Rooney should go and stick one on Ronaldo."'

It doesn't alter the fact that Shearer couldn't come up with a more constructive comment, nor his ridiculous, belligerent insistence that English players aren't minded to bend or break the laws, or moan to a ref every now and again. A presenter with more journalistic nous than Gary Lineker would have picked him up on that point straight away.

I just expect a bit more thoughtfulness from a BBC panel.

# to sean 98

i am portuguese, i live between the two countries, i actively contribute to the english and portuguese economy and i DO pay the TV license fee in England as well. IN that condition, i feel absolutely betrayed at the type of biased campaign that the BBC put up regarding Portugal.

Please be more intelligent, open up your eyes and mind, this is not 1945. The world is a different place.

And no, it is not the same thing the other way around. The portuguese 'broadcasting corporation' didn't act in the same way at all even following Rooney's vil act. And that tells a lot. Try sending a post in portuguese to all of us to read. Please, please stop this 'former big country' trauma.Get over it. Get on with it!!!

Enough is enough.

H.

Hey #28, do you REALLY think that Scolari should have spoken in english rather than portuguese??!

Why is that? 'Not to piss the rest of the world that does not speak portuguese'? ridiculous... what about the world that does not speak english?..

Your comment really shows how small minded you are...

As usual when England get knocked out of a tournament they always look for a scapegoat, all through the years there has always been one and this time it happens to be Ronaldo probably because the BBC and others are to scared to criticise the Golden boy Rooney who definitely deserved to get sent off and in my opinion should get a 5 match ban for his stupidity and arrogance, im sure you at the BBC will not agree with this and will continue your hate campaign against Ronaldo because at the end of the day you still want Rooney to have interviews with yourselves.

As someone (a football fan for 40 years) whos team never made it to Germany I was looking forward to a few good games of skilful football, a few brilliant goals and one or two star players showing how it should be done.
Please wake me up when its all over.
With very few exceptions there has been too many boring games, bad sportsmanship and very little skill in front of goal.

Too much is made of diving in England. Yes, dives occur, but that is why we have referees and lines men. However only very rarely if at all does diving decide matches against the better team. How many countries have won the World Cup, European Championship or even domestic leagues solely due to diving - victory unmerited by their overall play. Infact the only country whose victory in a World Cup could largely be attributed to irregularity is England who beat Germany in the 19966 World Cup final by a goal that never was. How many documentaries has the BBC done on this?

It is also an interesting fact that diving for some strange reason is more prevalent amongst the skilful teams than the less technically accomplished. ones. The Argentines, Italians, French, Spanish and Dutch tend to dive more than the English and Swedes, But who would you rather pay to watch, be honest. We all love fluent football, nice passing patterns, sleek dribbles, adhesive close control. That's what you get with the Latin variety, if the cost of that is a few players taking the occasional tumble, so be it. Sexual partners are frequently very manipulative that doesn't mean you stop having sex to avoid being manipulated. English and Scandinavian football is boring, predictable and uninspiring, the priggish brigade who want to spend 90 minutes shouting 'wow what an act of honesty' or 'Great player! he stayed on his feet there, c'mon lets see a replay of that' are welcome to it, the rest of us will take our chances in the real world inhabited by real people, where nobody, yes nobody is completely honest, including you and of course me.

Or have none of us ever told a small self interested fib at work, not been totally honest in filling in forms, been economical with the truth to a customer to protect the company where we earn our living, fibbed to a utility company about when we moved into a house to reduce the bill, earned some money without reporting it to the taxman. Give it a break, football is a profession, people are paid huge amounts of money to play and win. If well paid lawyers tell a few lies to ensure they win cases and maintain their lifestyle, why not footballers. If we want pure and honest football then lets make it 100% amateur, then Zidane can play after his plumbing job, Totti after digging ditches in Rome. Then at least with nothing at stake we'll all sit back and enjoy 'honest pure football'like they used to play it 100 years ago

With regards to Henry's dive, in my opinion he could've done anything he liked on the pitch against spain in that particular game.
he was after all playing against a guy who made racist comments about him and against a team whose fans were booing the french national anthem - the only fans to do so - plus were making monkey noises to the black french players as i entered the stadium

If i was him i would've ran over and dropped my shorts in aragones face at the final whistle.

Everybody talks about diving. to me, the racism is still the most important point. People like aragones and blokhin should be banned from the game for life

As a Dutch fan I can understand the English fans behaviour towards Ronaldo,however,I also felt that in the game between Holland & Portugal both sides were guilty of cheating, I have watched the English games and cannot understand the Portugal fans attacking the English game, if the Portugal fans feel that the English press have been unfair then I suggest they listed to French,Dutch & German T.V. where the same comments are shared by these countries...Portugal cheated to get as far as they did.
As for Rooney's sending off, he deserved to go, however, Ronaldo should also have been sent off for his amazing cheating.

Oh well!, four years to go..Hup Hup Oranje !!!