The Portuguese-Dutch team at the 2006 World Cup went down in history as one of the most memorable matches for the national team in the final stages due to the difficulty of winning the orange for Van Basten, also in light of the disciplinary criteria of the referee. Valentin Ivanov. The ‘Battle of Nuremberg’, as the round of 16 match of the competition was also known, ended up featuring the four red cards shown by the Russian referee and the 16 yellow cards that came out of his pocket. Although Maniche’s decisive goal came in the 23rd minute, Luis Felipe Scolari’s side suffered a strong setback after 11 minutes. Despite his young age, Cristiano Ronaldo was already one of the stars of the corner kick formation and was violently kicked in the leg by Dutchman Khaled Boulahrouz, who ‘passed’ with a yellow card. The fourth official in that match, Mexican Marco Rodriguez, revealed that CR7’s injury must have been premeditated. “Remember the Portugal-Netherlands match? Cristiano Ronaldo was the sensation and he was so young and they nailed him here [na perna]. He leaves injured and at that moment Marco van Basten [n.d.r. treinador da Holanda] Laugh, laugh! They didn’t tell me, I was there. Laugh! Filippao wanted to attack him and said, “Did you kick him?” “The World Cup is not about romance, it’s war,” he said during ‘SagaFut’.

“The game with the most cards in World Cup history ended up spiraling out of control,” Chiquimarco, also known as the retired referee, revealed. Rodriguez recalls: “We couldn’t do that anymore. I grabbed Figo and someone punched him, then the Dutch came… It was a mess!”

The fact is that Portugal will go to the “quarters” and measure its power with England.