Italy fear fix

14 April 2012

As usual they have provided the best soap opera on offer but amid all the walk-outs, spitting, plotting and talk of Machiavelli, Italy could tonight be exiting the Euro 2004 theatre. If they do, it will be accompanied by much paranoid wailing stage right.

Followers of the Azzurri have become so alarmed about the idea of some great imagined Scandinavian fix between Sweden and Denmark designed to oust them from the competition, they have even managed to do something we didn't think was possible. They've made a Dane very cross.

When the widespread suggestion emanated from the Italian camp that Denmark and Sweden might conspire to play out a 2-2 draw which would enable them both to qualify from Group C even if Giovanni Trapattoni's men beat Bulgaria, it made the normally placid Denmark coach, Morten Olsen, apoplectic.

"That is ridiculous," Olsen roared. "Who do you think we are? Do you think we are not honest and sporting? I will not speak of it. We don't do things like this. If the Italians speak about it, it's simply stupid."

He is right, of course. Apart from the fact no one is quite sure exactly how the teams would manage to fix a fourgoal draw even if they wanted to, the Italian conspiracy theorists seem to forget there is not exactly any love lost between Danes and Swedes. There is nothing they would enjoy more than knocking each other out.

Swedish coach Lars Lagerback just teases them: "With respect to Machiavelli, we won't be arranging the result before the game."

Still, this hasn't stopped Italian state broadcaster RAI from planning to use extra TV cameras at the Estadio Bessa in Porto just to ensure that fair play will be seen to be done in the Scandinavian derby.

"We wanted to add seven cameras but there wasn't space to set them up," their director of sport Fabrizio Maffei admitted. This was also a bit of tit for tat after Danish TV were responsible for the discovery of Francesco Totti spitting at Christian Poulsen.

The problem, as Trapattoni concedes, is that "we're a nation that loves these insinuations." He is quite confident that, actually, Denmark and Sweden will play normally. "These are ethical countries that traditionally have another concept of sports," he noted. "We're just thinking about ourselves."

Thinking too much about themselves perhaps. Instead of brushing aside the usual media criticism, Trapattoni's lot seem an unusually sensitive bunch.

Earlier in the tournament, captain Fabio Cannavaro read out a statement to the media, moaning that they were killing Italian hopes while on Sunday, Christian Vieri went one better, raging at their press corps that "I'm more of a man than all of you put together" as he stormed off in protest at the suggestion that he and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had had a row.

They seem to be retreating into the mentality that the world is against them, even though many believe Trapattoni only has himself to blame for his defence-oriented substitutions when Italy were leading and dictating in their last match against Sweden.

"At European Championships or World Cups, strange things always happen to us," muttered midfielder Gennaro Gattuso, evidently still thinking of a certain Ecuadorean ref in Korea.

Yet, ironically, despite having three key players - Totti, Cannavaro and Gattuso - out through suspension, Italy are probably still slight favourites to make it through.

Presuming Italy beat a dispirited and weakened Bulgaria, then a victory for either Denmark or Sweden or a goalless or 1-1 draw between them in the other match would be enough to see Trap's boys progress to the last eight.

Italy v Bulgaria, Guimaraes, tonight, 7.45pm (ITV1). Denmark v Sweden, Porto, tonight, 7.45pm (ITV2)

MORE ABOUT

Bulgaria

Denmark

Giovanni Trapattoni

Sweden

Italy fear fix

Read More