Despite dominating the game Portugal never fully subdued a game New Zealand side. Portugal needed goals from a free kick just before half time and a weirdly awarded penalty kick in the second half to beat New Zealand.
The New Zeakland goalkeeper probably made the free kick goal look better than it was as he was caught wrong footed. The penalty seemed to be given by the assistant referee as the play continued for a considerable number of seconds before the referee halted play and awarded the penalty. To compound the issue for NZ there did not appear to be much contact when the Portugusese player fell in the box.
Bruno Gama scored both goals for Portugal while Rui Patricio maintained a clean sheet. The New Zealanders battled away and might have had a consolation goal late in the game as Portugal lost concentration on a couple of occassions.
Yesterday I watched the Chile - Canada game and today the Portugal – NZ game and what can I say about the Brazil please for the love of the sport of soccer stop the diving, today one yellow card for diving, it could have been many more. YOU ARE KILLING THE GAME…
Never mind the yellow cards for Diving, it should be a puplic flogging, we have managed to stop the fans ruining the game, so now lets stop the players.
Let's have a dive of the day section...
If you want to win things by diving go find a pool
Last edited by stopthediving on July 2nd at 1:41 PM.
As always , the Portuguese are never given the respect they deserve. Did some of their players dive? Sure they did ,like so many other countries do. I despise that facet of the game. (where are the Italians in this tournament?) The fact remains that they have unbelievable skill, more than I anticipated, but they must work more as a team if they are to do some real damage here. In a few years all the top Premiership teams will be stacking their teams with yet some more Portuguese talent.
Um, "stopthediving," we Brazilians will stop the diving when teams stop coming out on the pitch with the principal tactic of cynical, tactical fouling, shredding players' ankles, kicking players' legs and never going for the ball (in tackles that are potential career-destroyers) -- Poland's team were a bunch of thuggish tactical foulers, that's all they did. Eliminate diving by changing the game's tolerance for deliberate tactical fouling. And it's amazing to see you single out Brazilians as divers when it's a constant tactic used by so many other teams.
Its funny how ppl like stopthediving are so offended by diving like its a new part of the game, its the oldest trick in the book and its not whats killing the game infact the game isnt bein killled at all, People focus on diving instead of dirty play now, I'm sorry but the hacking and the late tackles are much more detramental to the game then diving. When players stop entering challenges studs up then u can complain about diving till then theres much worse offenses going on...VIVA PORTUGAL!!! Viva Fabio Coentrao the newest Benfica signing!!
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