To recap the England-Portugual quarter-final, won in a shootout by Portugal:

Seventeen minutes in the second half, England's Wayne Rooney stomps on a guy's gonads and then pushes Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, a teammate from professional soccer, thus achieving his apparent goal of getting red-carded out of the World Cup quarter-final.

This left England down a man for 60 minutes of play.

However, Canadian-born Owen Hargreaves stepped it up big time at both ends of the pitch.

His efforts were aided by the fact that Portugal's snipers were kicking with their eyes closed. Maniche didn't have a good day shooting.

In the shootout, however, Portugual scored three times, with Ronaldo administering the coup de grace. Hargreaves potted England's only shootout goal.

Give full credit to Portugal's netminder Ricardo Pereira for that.

As I said yesterday, I expect Brazil to defeat France in today's other quarter-final.