Azzurri fear Scandinavian fix
Saturday19 June, 2004
Alex Del Piero, Gennaro Gattuso and Andrea Pirlo admit they fear that Denmark and Sweden will play out a high-scoring draw to knock out Italy.
“The international press and especially the Danes have picked on us over the last few days due to Francesco Totti’s spitting incident,” noted Del Piero. “They all talked about a lack of fair play. Now it’ll be interesting to see what their version of fair play is.”
A score-draw of 2-2 or above would automatically qualify both teams and eliminate Italy from the competition, regardless of their result against Bulgaria.
“A 2-2 would be truly a dirty result,” added the suspicious Juve captain, “but I am certain that both teams will go out there looking for the win.”
The rules for Group games in major tournaments were changed after the scandal of 1982, when Austria and Germany played out the only result that would qualify both teams, choosing not to go past the halfway line for 70 minutes of the match.
Now all the final Group ties must be played simultaneously to avoid a similar incident, except in this case Italy’s result is potentially irrelevant.
“I am still confident we’ll go through,” added Del Piero. “Sweden and Denmark can draw 0-0 or 1-1, because that can happen, but a 2-2 is such a strange result that it would mean there was some sort of agreement. It would be undignified and a shameful blight on both nations.”
Andrea Pirlo (pictured) is also concerned that a high-scoring draw will raise major question marks over the two neighbouring nations.
“I have experience at the highest level,” said the Milan man, “and therefore know that to agree a 2-2 draw or higher is very difficult indeed. If it was 0-0 that could qualify them, we’d be much more worried as that’s surely much simpler to play out.”
Some newspapers even asked Pirlo if he was going to call his Rossoneri teammates Jon Dahl Tomasson and Martin Laursen.
“It would be ridiculous for me to do such a thing. They are professionals and already know how to behave.”
But the toughest warning came from Gennaro Gattuso, who will be suspended for Italy’s match with Bulgaria.
“Let’s put about 50 TV cameras on the Sweden-Denmark game to capture it if anything untoward happens,” said the midfield warrior. “If there’s something I can’t stand, it’s all these Swedes and Danes trying to teach us how to play fair, so now I want to see what they’ll come up with.”
Gattuso also harked back to the controversy that followed Italy’s exit from the 2002 World Cup – a tournament that saw five valid goals disallowed for a variety of refereeing errors.
“I think we Italians aren’t too popular nowadays. They say UEFA respect us, but in every tournament recently something strange happens.”
The most reassuring Azzurri voice is Christian Vieri, who missed several great chances to kill off the game against Sweden.
“The Scandinavians have always been a model of civil behaviour and sporting fair play,” said the Inter striker. “I really doubt there will be a fix.”
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Would they? :d
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