Image Credit- Republic World.
Even though football is not a major sport in India. However during the FIFA World Cup even a country like India becomes football obsessed nation. My family being no exception. It was July, 2006 and the World Cup has reached its quarter final stage.
My parents watched the Argentina-Germany quarterfinal match. However I was stopped from watching the same because I had school next day. Fortunately the next quarterfinal match was played on Saturday and I was allowed by my parents to watch the quarterfinal game in entirety.
So the first football match which I saw was the 2006 FIFA World Cup Quarterfinal match between England and Portugal. Portugal beat Netherlands 1-0 in the round of 16 match to qualify for the quarterfinal. Whereas England beat Ecuador 1-0 to qualify for the quarterfinal.
England lost their captain David Beckham to injury just after the half time. However the turning point of the game was when a young English Striker Wayne Rooney was sent off for a stamp on Ricardo Carvalho.
After the red card the English fought hard and at the end of 120 minutes the score card read 0-0. The match was now to be decided on penalties. Lampard, Gerrard, Carragher all missed their penalties. The only Englishman who scored the penalty was Owen Hargreaves. The Portuguese missed a couple of their penalties as well. However the deciding penalty of a young Cristiano Ronaldo smashed English hopes of reaching the World Cup semifinal.
Even though it was Cristiano Ronaldo who smashed the English dreams of a World Cup Semifinal spot. But, still because of his skills and goals, Ronaldo became the favorite of the English Crowd including Wayne Rooney.
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