Culture: Sports: World Cup sees Beckham put England in quarterfinals, Dutch denied critical win by Portugal

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A spritely report from Associated Press impressed me with its spotliting David Beckham's dramatic free kick that put England into the World Cup's next round.

Tho the pace of the games has gone breathlessly to the next level, a few days have been left unscheduled so that the players can rest before the QuarterFinals' actual launch. Meantime, here's AP's daily featuring Beckham, which I found via Philly.com's Sports hubpage, with a mini-index for World Cup Soccer ... that is, "football."

Stuttgart, Germany - David Beckham bent the ball over the wall and squeezed England into the World Cup quarterfinals.

Beckham curled a trademark 25-yard free kick just inside the post in the 60th minute, the lone highlight in England's otherwise ugly 1-0 victory over Ecuador yesterday.

For an hour, the English aimlessly passed the ball in the 90-degree heat, surrendering chances to Ecuador and missing a few of their own.

The game turned when Edwin Tenorio fouled Frank Lampard outside the penalty area, giving England the free kick.

Then the England captain snatched the ball from the referee, lined up and sent it spinning and twisting toward the goal.

It hooked ever so carefully over a defensive wall of four Ecuadoreans in bright yellow shirts and dipped toward the corner. Goalkeeper Cristian Mora dived to his right and caught a piece of the ball with his fingertips, but couldn't stop it.

Shortly after the goal, Beckham vomited on the field - an apparent symptom of the dehydration that made him feel ill before the match kicked off. He came out of the game in the 87th minute.

"We've got to overcome this [heat] because there will be other days like this," he said.

Seeking its first World Cup title since 1966, England next plays Saturday against Portugal.

Nuremberg, Germany: Portugal 1, Netherlands 0 - The World Cup turned ugly as Portugal, down to nine men in a game of brutal fouls, held off the Netherlands and staggered into the quarterfinals.

Both sides were guilty. Pushing, shoving and theatrics led to a record-tying 16 yellow cards - and desperate attacking by the Dutch, also down to nine men, in the final moments.

The Portuguese survived, but when they play England on Saturday in Gelsenkirchen, they will be missing Deco and Costinha, two of their most important players, who were ejected against the Netherlands. They also saw Cristiano Ronaldo, a creative attacker, lost to a leg injury.

Portugal's coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, extended his World Cup mark to 11 straight victories.

Maniche scored the only goal. A quick threat on the edge of the area in the 23d minute ended with Pauleta touching the ball to Maniche, who skipped inside a defender and shot right-footed past goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar from 16 yards.

Seeing Red: More red cards have been shown in this World Cup than at any other, with 12 games remaining.

Yesterday's match between Portugal and the Netherlands, in which 16 yellow cards and four reds were shown, brought the total of red cards in Germany 2006 to 23 in 52 matches.

The previous record was 22 red cards in all 64 matches in the 1998 World Cup in France.

A total of 291 yellow cards have been shown in Germany, more than the previous record of 272 for the entire competition in Japan and South Korea four years ago.

Cyber outrage: FIFA blocked incoming e-mail from South Korea to its Web site because of a flood of angry messages from fans after the 2002 semifinalists went out in the first round of the World Cup.

Tags: World Cup braces for QuarterFinals

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