Denmark - Sweden: the Thread

[Sloth]

Originally posted by Spiffor
We have lost all of our Italians long ago

No, I'm still here, but I don't post much.
I can now laugh at the sanctimonious "holyier-than-thou" attitude of the Scandinavians...
we rig a match? NEVER!!!
yeah, right!!
Having said that, Italy played awfully and didn't deserve to go trough.
We lined up the worst side in a long while...possibly only 1986 Italy was worse in my memory.
An "has been" coach and a lot of "has been" players (Vieri, Del Piero, Cannavaro etc..). A great player who is an idiot (Totti) and Gilardino who scored 40 goals this season stayied at home. It's time to clean house!!!
I'm now tempted to root for England or Holland...but I fear that neither will survive the next match.

[Footie Mad]

Actually finns like Forsell, Petri Pasanen and Antti Niemi could probable be a useful addition to a scandinavian football team.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Sloth

No, I'm still here, but I don't post much.
I can now laugh at the sanctimonious "holyier-than-thou" attitude of the Scandinavians...
we rig a match? NEVER!!!
yeah, right!!
Having said that, Italy played awfully and didn't deserve to go trough.
We lined up the worst side in a long while...possibly only 1986 Italy was worse in my memory.
An "has been" coach and a lot of "has been" players (Vieri, Del Piero, Cannavaro etc..). A great player who is an idiot (Totti) and Gilardino who scored 40 goals this season stayied at home. It's time to clean house!!!
I'm now tempted to root for England or Holland...but I fear that neither will survive the next match.

Except....just because the result was as the Italians feared, doesn't mean that it was a fixed match.

It is a ridiculous claim, and you know it (or probably don't, since you most likely haven't watched the game)

Asmodean

[Kitschum]

Originally posted by Sloth

No, I'm still here, but I don't post much.
I can now laugh at the sanctimonious "holyier-than-thou" attitude of the Scandinavians...
we rig a match? NEVER!!!
yeah, right!!
Having said that, Italy played awfully and didn't deserve to go trough.
We lined up the worst side in a long while...possibly only 1986 Italy was worse in my memory.
An "has been" coach and a lot of "has been" players (Vieri, Del Piero, Cannavaro etc..). A great player who is an idiot (Totti) and Gilardino who scored 40 goals this season stayied at home. It's time to clean house!!!
I'm now tempted to root for England or Holland...but I fear that neither will survive the next match.

Edit: Sorry. It just seemed you tried to have the (Italy was poor) cake and eat it (Swe-Dan was fixed) too.

[Sloth]

Italy was certainly poor and is now out of the competion not on account of same strange conspiracy but on account of its poor play.
I don't know if the 2-2 was fixed. It is a little suspect, to be honest.
But what certainly gets under my skin is the claim "we don't fix matches, Italians do it" that seem to be widespread in this thread.

In other news: the Scandinavian persecution is far from over...our next to games after the summer will be against Iceland and Norway

[Kitschum]

Originally posted by Sloth
Italy was certainly poor and is now out of the competion not on account of same strange conspiracy but on account of its poor play.

Oh, so were we. Our right-back, our central midfield, they were absolutely inexcusably dreadful for the last two matches at least! But we proceeded anyway. If we hadn't you can be sure I'd be up in arms about it. It's just the little coincidences and intangibles that make the difference.

I don't know if the 2-2 was fixed. It is a little suspect, to be honest.

I'm convinced it wasn't fixed by any reasonable definition. It's true that at the final whistle both Sweden and Denmark were content with the result, and at each turn when one team scored, they relaxed their attack and the other suddenly sensed a new urgency, but that is the natural flow of the game and both teams still wanted dearly to win. Sweden and Denmark are very equally matched and it was a fight till the 90th minute when the last goal came. But natural developments led up to this result.

But what certainly gets under my skin is the claim "we don't fix matches, Italians do it" that seem to be widespread in this thread.

I agree, I quickly got tired of the stereotyping myself, although I saw it from both sides. To an extent I think it was a response to the assault of conspiracy accusations that were made against Sweden and Denmark in the days before the game which poisoned the atmosphere. That explains the banners in the stadium with 2-2 written on them and some media cheekiness as well:

http://www.repubblica.it/popup/servizi/giornale/svedese.html

In other news: the Scandinavian persecution is far from over...our next to games after the summer will be against Iceland and Norway

It's your chance for revenge! I like Italy (even predicted them to win Euro 2004), you'll be back.

[Sloth]

Originally posted by Kitschum


I like Italy

This is probably the only thing in your post I disagree with....but then again a country is like family....you can dislike it but you are forced love it (and to suffer for its national sport)