Translated material
Luck Technique
World champions remain at Euro
The Italian national team nevertheless escaped from a seemingly inevitable death in Group of Death “C”. Not without the help of referees, luck and the Dutch, but the world champions continue to fight for the European Cup, eliminating their longtime rivals - the French team - on the way to the top and leaving the Romanians to struggle with their experiences.In group “C”, before the final round, a paradoxical situation arose. In the strongest quartet of the group stage, the Romanian team could break into the playoffs with only two points. To do this, even in the event of a minor defeat from the Dutch, the Romanians could hope for a draw in the Italy-France match and, due to a better goal difference, retain second place. But when it comes to the European Championship, it is foolish to rely only on a lucky coincidence of circumstances. And Victor Pitsurka’s team was unable to offer anything more concrete in the game even against the second team of the “orange”.
However, the Orange reserves will give a head start to many of the main squads. Van Persie, Roben, Huntelaar, de Clare and the rest of their benchmates did everything they could to contribute to Holland's eventual success at this tournament. And they succeeded in this. Having survived several rather dangerous attacks by the Romanians, Marco van Basten's charges established game connections and began to increasingly harass their opponents.
They managed to hold out until the break, but after a rest everything fell into place: Huntelar connected the flank pass just in touch. The Romanians' hopes of ensuring the desired result themselves showed a noticeable crack. Van Persie finally destroyed them at the end of the match, when Victor Pitsurke's team had almost come to terms with elimination from the tournament - the Italians by that time in a parallel match were not going to squander the advantage they had gained from the French.
They achieved it, however, not without the help of referees and chance. The French team also had no doubt about Holland's victory over Romania and was filled with the desire to secure second place in the group. But already in the tenth minute Franck Ribery was injured, without whom Domenech’s team lost most of the team speed, and in the 25th minute referee Lubos Michel said his weighty word. The Slovakian not only awarded a penalty against Gregory Coupe, but also decisively ejected Abidal from the field, seeing in his actions a foul of the last hope.
Pirlo's shot into the top corner left no chance for the French goalkeeper to become the hero of the match, after which the French wilted. “When you lose a key player to injury, are short-handed and miss a penalty within a short period of time, it is very difficult not to give up. However, we did not give up,” said Raymond Domenech after the match. But these were not all the troubles that befell his team in this match. Already in the second half, when de Rossi took a free kick, the ball, hitting Henry, flew into the corner completely opposite from the plan. Naturally, Coupe was not waiting for him there at all. At this point, the European Championship actually ended for the French - scoring three goals against Italy in half an hour, playing with ten men, is hardly possible even in computer football, which a decent part of the world vice-champions are fond of.
“What can I say, of course, we were lucky a couple of times,” coach of the Italian national team Roberto Danadoni did not deny the influence of fortune on the result. - Ribery's injury complicated the situation for the French national team, and when de Rossi scored, there was a rebound. However, we won not only because of luck. We had a lot of chances." The one who missed the most was Luca Toni, the champion of this Euro in terms of lost chances. Perhaps he is saving all his scoring reserves for the quarterfinal match with Spain. The Italians can no longer get by with luck alone.
Game results. Group "C". Holland - Romania - 2:0 (Huntelaar 54, van Persie 87), France - Italy - 0:2 (Pirlo 25 pens, de Rossi 62).
Group "C"
| Holland | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 9--1 | 9 |
| Italy | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3--4 | 4 | |
| Romania | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1--3 | 2 |
| France | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1--6 | 1 |