Dude, Where's My Flag?

Red, Green and Yellow are usually colors that you find mostly on African flags.

Portugal got its current flag in1911, when most of the best colors and patterns had already been taken, but that's not why Portugal has such a tasteless flag.

In 1910, a coup d'etat was enforced by the republicans who eventually overthrown the monarchy and decided to get a new flag.
Normally, in such situations, the national colors are kept and only the symbols of the deposed regime are eliminated, eg. a star or a crown.

However this was not a overwhelming popular movement but a minority-led "revolution", hence the traditional national colors that had nothing to do with the monarchy but with the country's history (white and blue - the former represented the parliamentary constitution), were replaced by the colors of the republican party's flag. (Something similar happened in Russia, during the Soviet Union years, but even there normality has been restored, ultimately...)

What is worst, this has been covered up and the green has been camouflaged under the false allegation that "the green represented the fields of Portugal (mostly brown) and the red was the blood shed for the country"...
And by the way, the royal symbol, the crown, was replaced by a Masonic symbol, a globe or armillary sphere, that in spite of being a symbol of the Portuguese discoveries, its current meaning is actually related to the secret societies that conspired to bring down the monarchy and are responsible for bombings, and for murdering the lawful head of state and his son in 1908.

The sad part is, this fallacy is still being fed to people today, taught in schools and perpetuated shamelessly...
That's Portugal for you... a schizophrenic country under sedation, looking for its long lost identity...

The Game in Spain

Congrats to Spain, for the brilliant victory on the Euro 2008 cup - they were outstanding and didn't leave any doubt of the fairness of their success, unlike Greece for years ago...

Just went to show what an opportunity Portugal squandred at home, in 2004... and it won't be easy to have another shot at playing a final again, let alone winning it...

Anyway, Spain did show the way. They have given a master class in how to deffend and attack, all wrapped in class and humble work...
The "Spanish carrossel" (the way they passed the ball around) reminded me of the Portugal's style of the early 2000's - the team had players like Rui Costa, Figo, Joao Pinto, Sergio Conceicao, Pauleta... in their prime.

I guess it was proven that a good team needs to have a good goal-keeper, as well... one that is not only good on penalties, taken by English players, that is.