| Denmark and Sweden teamed up to send Italy home The expected scandal broke out at the European Championships. To leave the group and leave Italy out of the tournament, two teams - Denmark and Sweden - had to draw with each other - 2:2. The Scandinavians coped with their task brilliantly, and the Italian team, which scored the same number of points as its competitors, can only accuse its opponents of dishonesty. Not only Italians suffered, but also bookmakers. According to representatives of William Hill, due to the predicted result of the Denmark-Sweden match, the losses of this English bookmaker amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Even on the eve of the match, the Italians tried to put pressure on the Danes and Swedes with the help of public opinion. A lot of hints were made in order to draw attention to what kind of score the teams of Denmark and Sweden would be satisfied with. However, UEFA officials tried to dismiss all suspicions in advance. The Italians did not limit themselves to verbal artillery bombardment. The strategy for the match with the Bulgarians seemed to have been thought out to the smallest detail, right down to the minute when the goals would be scored. It was decided to score the winning goal in the last minute. In this case, the Swedes and Danes, looking at the result of the parallel match, could, in order to avoid suspicions of collusion, end their match with a score other than 2:2. But the Scandinavians decided not to take risks. Having achieved the desired score, the Danes and Swedes calmly rolled the ball into the center of the field, and after the final whistle of the referee, holding hands, they ran to thank the stands and each other.
The Italians could only express their indignation. “Someone should be ashamed of such a result. But definitely not for us,” said Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon after the meeting. - I'm very upset. Until recently, I did not believe that this could happen between two countries that pride themselves on the spirit of fair play. However, this happened, and now we, having scored five points and without suffering a single defeat, are leaving the championship. It's a shame." Other Italian players spoke in the same spirit, and only the coach of the Apennine national team, Giovanni Trappatoni, refused to comment on the strange result. “I’m an athlete and I don’t comment on such things. I think that everything was fair and the result simply turned out to be so,” said the head coach of the Italian national team, who in the near future should give up his post in the national team to ex-Juventus coach Marcello Lippi.
The UEFA leadership also does not see anything reprehensible as a result of the match between the two Scandinavian teams. In any case, the European Football Union is not going to conduct any official investigation. Moreover, the Italian Football Federation did not send any official complaints to UEFA. "There have been no complaints from the Italians at this time," said UEFA CDC spokesman Julien Sieveking, declining to comment further.
Even if the Danes and Swedes did not agree, the result of the match still significantly tarnished their reputation. And it’s not for nothing that the participants in this match are now forced to make excuses. “If you look at the game, it was only in the last 30 seconds that it looked like the teams were playing for a draw. The rest of the match confirms that we played for three points,” said Denmark striker Jon Dahl Thomasson. - We are a little disappointed because we did not win the tournament in our group. We shouldn’t have conceded a goal at the end of the game, but nevertheless we are very happy that we reached the quarter-finals.”
Victory in the match would allow the Danes to avoid meeting the Czechs in the quarter finals, who are currently considered one of the strongest teams in the championship. The Czech team won first place in Group D ahead of schedule. But the Swedes yesterday were eagerly awaiting who would become their opponent. Three teams competed for the remaining vacancy in the quarterfinals - Germany, Holland and Latvia.
Behind all these proceedings, the disastrous performance of the Bulgarian team remained in the shadows. Plamen Makrov's team was the only one that failed to score a single point. And thus the Bulgarians confirmed the axiom: the more scandals, the worse the results. After all, the first conflict in the national team arose long before the start of the European Championship, when the players began to fiercely divide the bonuses due to them. Then, after a major defeat from the Swedes, the Bulgarian football players began to look for the culprits in their own team. And now a barrage of criticism has fallen on the head coach of the national team, Plamen Markov.
Denmark - Sweden - 2:2 (Thomasson 28, 66 - Larsson 47 - pen, Jonsson 89), Italy - Bulgaria - 2:1 (Perrotta 48, Cassano 90+4 - M. Petrov 45 -- with pen.).
Group "C" I V N P M O | 1. Sweden | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 8--3 | 5 | | 2. Denmark | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4--2 | 5 | | 3. Italy | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3--2 | 5 | | 4. Bulgaria | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1--9 | 0 |
Andrey VDOVIN
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