My my, what a circus that was! How many cards was that? I lost count! 4 players sent off!

Oh yeah, and two of them were Deco and van flippin Bronckhorst. Both on my fantasy team. Thanks a bunch, ref, thanks a bunch.

13 players booked, 4 red cards.

Valentin Ivanov was worse than our own Graham Poll if that's possible.

Let's not go crazy now

Now I didn't see Mr Ivanov's second half display but Costinha deserved to go in the first half. However, whenever you see 4 players sent off in a match, the gut reaction is that the referee had a mare. Reading a lot of reports by people who actually watched the match, it seems that he did. Maybe he was just showing Poll that two yellows equal a red....

I assume it was a mad match, might have to watch the highlights. I completely slept through it though!

What do you reckon our chances are against Portugal in the last round? Our recent competitive record doesn't bode well.

No, but what doesn't bode well for Portugal is that Ronaldo's injured, and Deco and Costinho are suspended. I'd say it's a pretty level playing field going into the match, with that taken into consideration...

Portugal will be without Deco and Costinha and possibly an injured Ronaldo, so that gives us perhaps more of a chance. We'll have to improve on your performances thus far if we're to win, however.

I GOT THERE FIRST!

Well Portugal's bad luck is outr chance to prosper.

Sounds like we're in with at least half a chance. Roll on July 1st!

Yes you did. Damn.....I'm too slow

ROFLMAO

Good thing Deco and Costinha are suspended for this one as far as Portugal are concerned - they won't need them against England, but will need them for an almost certain semi-final against Brazil.

Spare a thought for me guys. My husband is Dutch and my son prefers the Dutch part of his dual nationality. To say they were gutted is an understatment!!

The orange bunting came down as quickly as it was put up!!!!!

Oh dear...

Someone I work with has Dutch relatives too, but I think she was glad that there was no England-Netherlands match!

I know several Dutch friends online, one of whom hates football and is glad that all the hype will be over now. One of the others thought the referee was awful, I think.

I've managed to catch highlights now and think that far from the ref being awful, the behaviour of the players was the only disgrace on show. Diving, head-butting, bad tackles.....if anything, the ref could have handed out more red cards (i.e. to Figo) and Deco should perhaps have walked for his first yellow card "tackle". The two sets of players behaved like children and made the match pretty much unrefereeable. I'd much rather have a ref like Ivanov who was fair to both sides rather than the cowardly nature of Mr Simon in the Germany/Sweden match who only sent of Lucic after a quiet word from Podolski!

Now I read that Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, has come out criticising Mr Ivanov for seemingly actually following the new strict directives set out by Blatter himself. Unbelievable!

Without Deco and Ronaldo, Portugal are fairly toothless. Figo should really be suspended for his headbutt too, but unfortunately won't be. The fact a number of them are already on yellows means they won't want another one. All this works in England's favour. Although we've played badly up till now, I think we should get through this one.

I have to say, now I've seen the highlights, Mr Ivanov wasn't actually that bad. All 4 red cards were deserved although Figo should have gone too.

Brazil are likely to qualify... but with Ronaldo out and those two suspended Portugal won't beat England, or it'll go to the end.

PLEASE NOT PENALTIES!

No, I love penalties! They're so simple - you either get it in, or you don't. None of this offside/formations/tactics rubbish.

Italy vs either Austria or Australia is 0-0 right now, I see...I hope that one goes to penalties! I get interested if it's penalties.