Euro 2004 Day Eleven

Controversy! I loved the drama as Italy went home despite defeating lowly Bulgaria 2-1 in the closing moments because the Scandinavian sides drew 2-2.

We began our viewing with the first half of the Denmark vs. Sweden matchup, which was an entertaining affair, especially when Jon Dahl Tomasson struck a beautiful, dipping ball into the far right corner of the net. The Danes took a 1-0 lead into halftime.

Meanwhile "The Spaghetties" were struggling with Bulgaria, and went down a goal thanks to Martin Petrov's penalty just before halftime. Things weren't looking so good for the heavily favored Azzurri.

The second half of the Scandinavian derby produced three important goals, the first one on a Henrik Larsson penalty shortly after the kick-off. The Danes weren't done yet, and went back ahead with Tomasson's second goal of the day.

Back at the Italy vs. Bulgaria match Steve and I were watching a desperate Italian squad finally push for the victory after playing dreadful, cautious football for most of the tournament. They finally leveled the score thanks to a scrappy follow-up by Simone Perrotta, just beating the Bulgarian keeper.

However, developments in the other match made things difficult for Italy, since Sweden's Mattias Jonson equalized in the closing minutes to create a 2-2 tie, thus eliminating the Italians regardless of their decision. This Scandinavian result proved to be especially cruel when Italy's Antonio Cassano hit a nice shot into the upper right netting, giving his side the 2-1 victory. Italy immediately celebrated thinking they were through to the next round before running to their bench to find out that Sweden had tied and thus sent Italy home on a total goals scored tiebraker. It was a painful yet slightly pleasing to see a great footballing nation like Italy eliminated in the first round.

In post-game interviews some of the Italians, notably goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon questioned the outcome of the Sweden vs. Denmark match, claiming that the two sides conspired in a Scandinavian pact to send Italy home. Thankfully Italian striker Bernardo Corradi refused to place the blame on outside forces, since the Italians couldn't defeat either Sweden nor Denmark. Of course, some fans seemed to have drawn their own conclusions before the matches began.

Photos:

1. Henrik Larsson is pumped he came out of retirement to help his side to the top of Group C.

2. She looks like the Virgin Mary, but Italy would have needed divine intervention to make it through to the second round.

3. The all-important scoreboard.

4. Swedish celebration.