Originally posted by Crimson Sunrise
Good Lord, what were the Angolan players doing?
It was the first game between both countries in more than a decade, and the angolans were certainly waiting for it anxiously. Portugal was the former colonial power for 500 years until less than 30 years ago, and there is a huge community of angolan immigrants in Portugal, including the entire angolan team. Furthermore, Portugal was at the height of her football prestige in recent years, being tipped as one of the top favourites for the upcoming WC. So, to Angola this was more important than the final of the WC and for Portugal just a preparation match for the WC.
The stadium had probably as much angolans as portuguese fans, and quite surprisingly, Angola scored in the first minute and held admirably for about 20-30 minutes against an opponent lacking in motivation. So, to the team and the fans this started to be the game of their lives. Then I don't remember what was the precise sequence of events, but Portugal equalised. I'm not sure if this was a penalty of the penalty was a later goal. Anyway there was a penalty that the angoland contested and the first red card to them. Then there was an ugly foul on Pauleta, who got up pissed-off threatening the angolan player, who faked being hit by Pauleta. The french referee ignored that and at this point the angolan public became very aggressive and thought they were being robbed, and the sentiment passed not just to the players, but also to the angolan coaches. From this point up until the beggining of the second half when the match ended because they had run out of the minimum number of players, they just had one thing in their mind, to vent their frustrations of the portuguese players, which started a whole new kind of game: the portuguese players trying to play a little football while trying to avoid the violent tackles of the opponent. The referee otoh spend the rest of the match either showing cards or refraining from doing so, hoping the to get some sense. I remember one particulary well, a Karate Kid flight directed at João Pinto's knee. Fortunately, the timing wasn't perfect and the angolan player missed it. That would have been a career ending injuree. Of course that was one of the red cards.
The next day, after they realised what they had done, they apologised as much as they could and asked for a rematch and the chance to show that they're a nice team and all that.
The portuguese coach replied :"Of course we'll be happy to play, we can play one day when both our teams meet at the WC or any international FIFA competition..." So, I don't think we're gonna play them again soon...
Oh yeah, it ended 5-1I think.