The 2006 World Cup, held in Germany, was relatively free of any serious altercations for the majority of the tournament. There were no serious fights, nor referee cock-ups, and the Cup seemed to be going swimmingly. Then, Portugal and Holland took to the field, and the result was perhaps one of the bloodiest football matches ever to be played.
Everything was, about what you would expect, between two squads as aggressive as Portugal and the Netherlands. In the 23rd minute of the first half, Maniche scored a goal from inside the area. The game seemed to be progressing fairly normally, given the extremely strong squad that Portugal had brought to bear that year. Then, for no apparent reason, both teams seemingly completely lost their minds.
The first two instances of yellow cards came before the goal was actually scored. Mark von Bommel and Khalid Boulahrouz, both Dutchmen, had been booked (the former for a foul that sent star Cristiano Ronaldo off the field due to injury). Almost immediately after the goal, Portuguese midfielder Constinha tackled Cocu rather harshly and was awarded a yellow card for his trouble. He was later sent off, with a red card being awarded for a handball. Both Figo and van Bronkhorst, two of the senior players on their respective teams, subsequently received yellow cards. After that, the game progressed into what seemed to be a competition to see who could make the most egregious foul.
When the dust finally settled, the foul statistics clocked in at four red cards and a whopping 16 yellows, a number previously unseen. This staggering amount of infractions was blamed on a variety of things, from the excessive passion of the players involved to the ineptitude of referee Valentin Ivanov, who was later remonstrated to by FIFA President Sepp Blatter for his poor refereeing. The match has since been caricaturised by a number of different people, and has been given the dubious nickname of “the Battle of Nuremberg”, due to its location and the almost war-like attitude that existed on the field.