France 1 Portugal 0

[Eddie]

Italy must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of playing France.

[Oklahoma]

no need to post here after insult.

[tchocky]

Tight final looms with two defensively very sound teams.

Forza Italia!!

[herbergeehh]

So, anyone changed their mind on who they want to win the World Cup?

Awful match.

[Hasta]

I was wondering if bitterness at our own downfall was clouding our judgement with us all labelling Portugal the cheating enemy of football. Good to see tonight proved our judgement was correct.

Sure other team do it but not to the extent of what we saw tonight. More or less any contact led to a player going down. When the BBC highlighted the 5 or 6 dives in the box at the end of the program it showed it for the disgrace it was.

[Shevchenko]

Justice is served tonight, love it!

Crap game and France were poor but...RESULT~!

Portugal were, yet again, utterly disgraceful.

[Eddie]

So, anyone changed their mind on who they want to win the World Cup?

Awful match.

Even I want Italy to win the world cup. France have been that poor.

[American]

I want it to be cancelled.

What a choice, either the French, who I hate because they are French, or the dirty, cheating, diving Italians...

That's like asking who I'd like to win a brawl between Burnley and the Oakland Raiders...

[herbergeehh]

the dirty, cheating, diving Italians...

Views like yours make me want Italy to win even more!

Oh well, bring on Tour de France.

[modes98]

Portugal were, yet again, utterly disgraceful.

There were at least 5 obvious dives in an attempt to win free kicks and penalties. Ronaldo should have been booked for both of his and gone. Pauleta was lucky for his dive and protesting when miguel injured himself.

Ref took no control of the game, France took the lead and then put 11 men behind the ball and crossed their fingers, which with barthez in goal isn't a good idea.

Come on France, beat the Diving italiens!

[SouthAussieRover]

Good riddance to the diving Portuguese and the ungracious Scolari.

I hope FIFA has a long hard look at the blight affecting this game. Video evidence should be used to punish the offenders.

[vindaloobob]

Don't think the ref had that bad of a game really, he called the penalty spot on, he didn't get sucked in by the dives, the only thing that he might have done better was to yellow card a few of the divers. He could've done a lot worse really, kept the game flowing as much as possible.... Typical that the good semi is the one I miss by being out on the drink

[LeChuck]

Allez les bleus!

I don't think I'll be able to handle it if Totti gets his hand on a World Cup trophy.

Edit: Missed the game first time, watching the highlights now...in the space of a couple of minutes I've seen Ronaldo and especially Postiga diving terribly. Thank God those scum are out.

Edited July 5, 2006 by LeChuck

[Fife Rover]

Don't think the ref had that bad of a game really, he called the penalty spot on, he didn't get sucked in by the dives, the only thing that he might have done better was to yellow card a few of the divers. He could've done a lot worse really, kept the game flowing as much as possible.... Typical that the good semi is the one I miss by being out on the drink

That is more or less as I saw it too Vinders. It was a very poor match and there was not a lot of football played by either side, BUT I did think that of the two teams Portugal played slightly the better football. If they had got a better strike force they would have won it.

Edited July 5, 2006 by Fife Rover

[Oklahoma]

Once again, better not to respond to insults!

[SouthAussieRover]

Once again, better not to respond to insults!

What insults?

[American]

I was hoping Portugal would win, but let's call a diver a diver. If the shoe fits, Oklahoma, the Portugese would trip over it. They aren't insulting, just pointing out facts about the way they played and play acted.

[Oklahoma]

I'm ashamed of the diving some portuguese players did but I don't see you rant against Ribery, Zidane and Henry for diving.

Anyway, calling my national team "scum" is an insult, at least in my poor english.

But maybe it has some other meaning that I don't know of.

[LeChuck]

I wasn't referring to you or Portuguese people Oklahoma, merely the eleven players out on the pitch.

No team is perfect but the Portugal side are by far the worst offenders for cheating at the moment, the tournament is better off without them.

[Oklahoma]

I'm not proud of the divers we have in our team, unfortunatelly it's something that will take some time to change.

But other teams have divers, some won games because of it (Italy, for example).

Just imagine that two teams assaulted each other after the game between them. So much fair play.

There is also France, that took forever to come for the second half and delayed the game as far as they could.

[Nate]

It doesn't matter what Portugal may of done in the past, fact is they were ripped by a cheating Henry, who showed his true colours earlier in the tournament. I know how they feel!

[SouthAussieRover]

It doesn't matter what Portugal may of done in the past, fact is they were ripped by a cheating Henry, who showed his true colours earlier in the tournament. I know how they feel!

Poetic justice in a way.

[Rover4ever]

I wasn't referring to you or Portuguese people Oklahoma, merely the eleven players out on the pitch.

No team is perfect but the Portugal side are by far the worst offenders for cheating at the moment, the tournament is better off without them.

Here's from a neutral person. france were also pathetic yesterday with their diving and this is the 2nd game they are winning with Henry's theatrics. Its veyr easy to single out Portugal but Ribery and Henry were as bad last night

There were at least 5 obvious dives in an attempt to win free kicks and penalties. Ronaldo should have been booked for both of his and gone. Pauleta was lucky for his dive and protesting when miguel injured himself.

Ref took no control of the game, France took the lead and then put 11 men behind the ball and crossed their fingers, which with barthez in goal isn't a good idea.

Come on France, beat the Diving italiens!

France has wont twice after diving (Spain and Portugal matches). Italy ha s won one match after diving (Australia), so IMO you should be calling them the "diving French"

[RoyRover]

It was a pretty dire match and one that neither team really deserved to win. Ronaldo was the best player on the pitch IMO. At first I thought Henry dived for the penalty, but on second look, Carvalho kicked him with his trailing foot and that's all it takes for it to be a penalty. Some of the Portugese diving last night was awful and should have been stamped out, but what offended me more was the smuggness of the BBC pundits when Portugal lost.

[grizfoot]

Portugal never looked like scoring (in open-play anyway) they seemed content with just passing it around. No attacking threat upfront at all. France just turned negative in the second half pretty much because they knew Portugal were that bad iin a attacking sense.

Henry dive for the penatly. He did get contact but made the most of it. It'a so fitting that Portugal go out after a penalty won by a dive

Big Phil in a Big Strobe (magicals subs, i think not) and Christina crying, what a shame

France to beat Italy