The UEFA Nations League Final: The Battle of Nuremberg Part II

ENGLAND becoming the first team to play a 3rd/4th playoff in consecutive years seems like a huge story but on closer inspection, no. The real Nations League angle is the chance for Portugal and the Netherlands to relive one of the greatest World Cup matches of the 21st century, the Battle of Nuremberg in 2006, when the two sides engaged in open warfare, the only game in the competition’s history to see four players sent off.

If you see Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Babel sharing a knowing glance on Sunday evening it will be because they are survivors of that violence-tinged evening 13 years ago. Babel was an unused substitute but Ronaldo was a starter for the Portuguese before being substituted in tears in the 33rd minute, suffering from the injuries he had sustained from a medieval challenge by Khalid Boulahrouz in the seventh minute, possibly the second worst crime the Dutch defender committed after wearing the number nine shirt for Chelsea in 2006-07.

Boulahrouz later became one of the four players to be sent off in the game, picking up second yellow in the second half for a vague elbow in Luis Figo’s direction. The other players to go were Costinha, Deco and Giovanni van Bronckhorst, picking up second yellows for a deliberate handball, throwing the ball away and some sort of leg tagliatelle with Thiago respectively. The sight of the two Dutchmen and Deco sitting peacefully together on the sidelines late on acted as a sort of cosmic judgement on referee Valentin Ivanov, who was overtly criticised by FIFA president Sepp Blatter after the match.

With Portugal hosting Netherlands tonight here's a throwback to the 'Battle of Nuremberg' in the 2006 World Cup.

– 16 yellow cards – 4 red cards

Absolute carnage! pic.twitter.com/IHgGjvecT6

— Footy Accumulators (@FootyAccums) March 26, 2018

In reality, Ivanov had been faced with a rare breed of match, one filled with some fairly brutal challenges but not much else. Portugal only committed 10 fouls in the game, but picked up nine yellows (counting the reds as their two constitute parts). Holland added 15 fouls of their own but 64 Premier League games saw more than 25 fouls in 2018-19, and none of them contained more than one red card.

The table below shows the game in comparison to other World Cup card-fests and fans of the genre will be pleased to see Holland’s World Cup final against Spain in 2010 in third place. When the stakes are high, the Dutch occasionally go all out and although no-one** wants to see scenes like this in Porto on Sunday night, it is an entertainment business nonetheless.

All but one of the games in the table have been in the 21st century and that’s unsurprising as we are in the age of punishment. England’s game with Argentina in 1966 holds the record for the most fouls by a team (35) without them collecting a single caution (plot twist: Sir Alf, YOUR players were the real animals) but that would simply not happen in the present day.

The introduction of VAR has most obviously had an impact on offsides and penalty decisions but we are still waiting for it to impact a toe-to-toe slugfest between two sides intent on winning at all costs. Perhaps the inaugural Nations League final will live up to its strongman heritage and grant us our dreams.

**some people