Confession Box: What was your biggest moment of football treachery?

By: Rob | January 15th, 2009

I was going through my meagre living space earlier on, and I found a T-Shirt – wouldn’t have meant much to most people on first glance, but it was a Portugal Shirt. In fact it was a Portugal shirt from Euro 2004.

Euro 2004, of course provided one of the best games of football you are ever likely to see – between Portugal and England. I can still pretty much tell you every detail of what happened as I sat draped in a St. Georges Cross that day, and indeed how and why I own a shirt of the side that knocked us out.

Basically, I watched the game with my friends. We had high hopes. If England could get Rooney and Owen firing, we could beat an aging Portugal side, still, despite the additions of Simao and Ronaldo, mostly clinging to their Golden Generation. England went ahead thank to Michael Owen, and despite Rooney limping off, England looked good valule. Untill…

In a moment of madness I still haven’t been forgiven for, in the build up to a Portugal attack, I yelled “Give it To Postiga!” less than a minute laster, the Spurs striker had put it in the net.

If you watch the highlights of the game here, at 3:21, thats when i shouted my instructions to the Portugese. At 3.31, thats the very same Helder Postiga heading the ball in. The room, as you can imagine, when silent and turned to me. I have never known any atmosphere to change quite that quickly.

In my defence, Postiga was rubbish. He was playing at Spurs then, and had had a dreadful season. I just looked up how dreadful, and it turns out, worse than I thought. 1 goal in 19 appearances. What was he even doing in the squad on those stats? When I yelled to pass to Postiga, it was jeering, because I couldn’t concieve a situation where he could score. Nuno Gomes? Yeah. Postiga? Hell no.

England conceeded again in that game, and despite Frank Lamaprd’s effort in bailing us out (back when he was widely thought of as the best midfielder in the world), And Rui Costa trying to bail me out by missing his penalty, England were sent home, and it was all my fault.

At least that’s how my friends saw it. So the following day, I was forced to go and buy a Portugal shirt (thankfully, the shop was out of Postiga marked ones) and wear it for the remainder of the tournament. I guess it was how they delt with the grief, blaming me for England not having the luck of the day.

So I thought I’d pass on this story, (in the hope the Postiga nightmares will stop) and ask for more: Offsiders, when did you let your country, or your club down the most? Did you cheer for a rival side once? Have a similar experience to me? Go to Wembley to watch your rivals, just so you could go see Wembley? Not go to a game even though you could?

Let us know in the comments.