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U21 European Championship: France vs Romania: conspiracy or not - sport
- Before the last group match of the Under-21 European Championship, both France and Romania knew that a draw between the two would be enough to get through. The game ends 0: 0.
- The unusual tournament mode with three groups of four before the semi-final favored the teams that play the last game.
- Host Italy is out, but practices self-criticism.
Maybe they wanted it too much. A week ago, at the second European Championship U21 match against Poland, junior internationals Riccardo Orsolini, Federico Chiesa and Patrick Cutrone sang the anthem loudly, they seemed to scream. A child who had run into the square with them in the stadium in Bologna and stood in front of them, covered his ears. Now they are not singing the anthem at this tournament any more, and they are not singing it at the football tournament of the Olympic Games next year either.
The Italian newspapers had reasons on Tuesday to revolt about the circumstances of the U21 European Championship exit. France and Romania had lost 0-0 on Group C's last day of play, a result that both, as they knew before kick-off, reached to the spot. Romania is now the German semi-final opponent, France meets Spain. Italy's hosts, however, are out - coach Luigi Di Biagio resigned on Tuesday.
Italy has its own fault, write the newspapers
The tournament mode have been criticized in recent days, many coaches. He gave an advantage for those teams whose groups were the last to complete the preliminary round. There were two groups at the U-21 European Championship two years ago with eight participants and at EM 2021 there are four groups of 16. This time, with twelve participants in three groups, only the best group second went on. Although the French had a chance shortly before the end against Romania, Matteo Guendouzi shot over it. But the restrained desire for risk was to look at both teams.
"Biscotto" is called biscuit, but is also the Italian word for conspiracy, and so headlined the next day Gazzetta dello sport, But the Corriere dello sport wrote that it was useless to blame "Biscotto". Rather, Italy's team had "made many mistakes" and "wasted" a one-time chance. After a thrilling 3: 1 at the opening Italy, with six A-national players in the squad, lost 1-0 to Poland and therefore was in the end, despite six points, only second in Group A. "Another embarrassment" wrote La republic,
The semi-final would have meant for 2020, the Olympic qualifiers, the Italian footballers last succeeded in 2008.
