Euro 96 Revisited – Day 4
Every one of the sixteen participants have now played in in this year’s European Championships after the two matches today.
This is the tenth European Championship and is the first to have sixteen teams taking part in it and two of the sides that played today were entering their first major tournament. They are Turkey and Croatia and they both played each other in the later kick-off.
Italy, runners-up at the World Cup in America two years ago, played Russia in the early kick off. The Italians are expected to do well in this year’s tournament and they started their Euro ’96 campaign off with a 2-1 win.
Lazio’s Pierluigi Casiraghi scored both of Italy’s goals in their victory over Russia at Liverpool’s famous Anfield ground.
His opener came after only five minutes, capitalising on a goalkeeping blunder from Russia’s Stanislav Cherchesov.
Cherchesov hit a clearance that cannoned off Angelo Di Livio straight into the path of Casiraghi 30 yards from goal.
Casirahi took a couple of touch, composed himself before firing low across Cherchesov into the bottom right hand corner.
Russian winger Ilya Tsymbalar levelled the score after 21 minutes. He latched on to a loose ball to score from six yards.
Italy were to have the last laugh though and won the game courtesy of Casiraghi’s right foot on 52 minutes. Parma’s Gianfranco Zola slipped a delicate through-ball for his strike partner to chase. Casiraghi got in between two Russian defenders and hit the ball into the back of the net at the near post.
Turkey and Croatia played out a tense match at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground. Both sets of fans are known for being passionate about their football and those present at the game didn’t disappoint.
Croatia won the game with four minutes to go thanks to a breakaway goal from substitute Goran Vlaovic.
Vlaovic had only been on the field for a little less than a quarter of an hour after he replaced Alen Boksic. It might have been his extra pace that gave him the opportunity to race clear before rounding Recber Rustu and calmly tapping the ball into an empty net.
Germany lead Group C with Italy in second, both sides have three points. Russia sit in third place having scored a goal and Czech Republic occupy the bottom spot.
Croatia are top of Group D with three points, Denmark and Portugal both have one point and Turkey are bottom.
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