I remember that in Portugal almost everyone was rooting for that to happen. The Czech Republic had a great tournament, Baroš was scoring like crazy and we had already lost to Greece in the opening game, so we wanted to play against you. Everyone was a little bit overconfident after beating England and strolling past the Netherlands, so we wanted the best possible opponent to end the tournament in big fashion. Everything that could go wrong, went. You really deserved to be in that final.
Was at the stadium. Never actually realized that thing with the gloves, because I was at the opposite end. What I do remember is Rui Costa’s wonderful goal and an unreal match-up between Ronaldo and Ashley Cole. Oh, and Jorge Andrade destroying Rooney’s foot 20 minutes into the game - and that 18-year-old Rooney was basically the most hyped up player of the tournament at that moment.
I had to work the game in a small pharmacy. I told my friend to call me with any updates. She called me to tell me they went to penalties and that she would call me back with the final. There I am, standing by the window of the pharmacy looking out on the street while sorting medicine when up drives a pickup truck loaded to the brim with Portuguese fans, giant flag hanging out the back, holding down the horn and crying, laughing and singing. The phone rings, my friend starts to speak; I cut her off mumbling, “I know”.
It wasn’t Eusebio who told him to do it. I’ve recently listened to a interview of him on the radio, he basically did it as a way to motivate himself to defend Vassel’s penalty. /u/KQ17 is probably confused with the fact that Eusebio was behind the goal and told him where to dive - and he went the opposite way 🙂
Indeed. I was scared of him, Portugal was scared of him. The English fans at the stadium spent the warm-up shouting “Roooooooooney”. He was the star of a team that was filled with top-tier players: Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Rio, Scholes, Owen, Joe Cole… And then Jorge inadvertently took care of him. And Vassell stepped in, at the 27th minute. And Vassell missed the decisive penalty.
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