Ivory Coast v Portugal – Svengence?

Drogba a spectator, yellow cards a plenty, Christiano the only threat in evidence for the Portuguese – the Ivory Coast has control of mid-field at the 30 minute mark.
With all attention on Drogba’s arm and Ronaldo, of course, very little has been said about the fact that Sven-Goran Eriksson’s last match at a World Cup final was vs. Portugal (and at Euro 2004 too) – both ended in defeat via penalty shoot-outs – hard to imagine he hasn’t reviewed the details of those matches a few times – and at the 39 minute mark, it seems Sven’s haunting memories have born fruit – no serious threats on goal yet for IC, but after a brilliant early strike off the post from Ronaldo (who is now saddled with a yellow), nothing at all from Portugal – the Ivorians’ game plan looks rock solid
Game has opened up at 57 minutes – probably only twenty more minutes of this before defensive shells return – fun while we’ve got it
Drogba coming on at 64 minutes!!!!!! Just as Portugal starts getting the better of the play – but Sven always seems to have enough bodies back
Drogba enters at 65 minutes – the arrival of the Messiah – one of the moments of the tournament so far – oddly, Kalou comes out (Sven, what that? – you’d think he’d leave the Chelsea teammates out there together)
Rain coming down, ball skidding ahead of players on slick grass
Ronaldo tries to find space 18 yards out – surrounded by five orange shirts (Sven learned his italian well at Lazio)
70th minute, Drogba passes on initial opportunity to volley a ball from the left side of the box – then tries it moments later to no affect
71st minutes – second straight Portugal corner coming up – “cue the commercial at ITV” (translation: I think there’s a goal coming in this game.)
74th minute – nothing at all from Didier yet – pouring down now
80th minute – ronaldo “set piece” from 35 yards out, straight on… unable to tame Jabulani, over the left corner
82nd minute – anticipating the return of cynicism
85th minute – second cramp for Toure – Portugal, BTW, is quite afflicted by injury: Nani (Man U) would certainly have been Ronaldo’s most dynamic partner up front and is a huge loss, as is Pepe (Real Madrid), who is a monster on the back-line, and also Bosingwa (Chelsea) also from the back-line. Three starters for three of the top clubs in the world – accumulatively, that’s a huge loss for any world cup side.
90th minute – starting to crawl towards a draw, and then Drogba’s in on goal… and he passes???
93rd minute – a flurry of opportunities for Ivory Coast, punctuated by a near break for Portugal… then the final whistle