Memories of Euro 96 Failure Can Provide Hope for Italy

After two days of expected results, today we finally saw the real opening of Euro 2008. The Netherlands opened their tournament in the best possible style, beating Italy 3-0 and sinking the group favorites to the bottom of the group of death. But Italy can find some solace in a little bit of history from Euro 96, and learn from a disappointment in their own past.

Group C in Euro 96 was much like the same group in this tournament, a group of death. Italy was drawn against Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic. Those were, at the time, the #2, #3 and #10 teams in the world, matched up with Italy, the #7. The group started with a dramatic win for Germany over the Czechs, 2-0, and suddenly the Czech side found themselves alone at the bottom of the group, with some of the best teams in the world ahead of them. Sound familiar?

The Italians opened that group performance with a 2-1 win over Russia, on a brace from Pierluigi Casiraghi, and things looked good for them. A win in their second match of the group, against the Czechs, would have put them into the quarterfinals and sent their opponents home early. But the Czechs dusted themselves off from their defeat at the hands of the Germans and came back strong against Italy. Pavel Nedved opened the scoring in just the fourth minute, and though the Italians found an equalizer, the Czech side ended up with a 2-1 win and were right back in it.

The second-match loss for Italy meant they needed a result against the Germans, who had outscored their opponents 5-0 in their first two matches. Jurgen Klinnsman had already scored a brace against the Russians, and though the tough Italian defense had enough to stop him, they couldn’t manage a goal, and finished with four points. The Czechs finished up with a goalfest 3-3 with Russia, and were on four points too, but their head-to-head result got them through. In fact, they made it all the way to extra time in the final, before the second half of an Oliver Bierhoff brace finished them off.

It’s hard right now for Italian fans, and as a fan of a Scottish side that has been on the wrong end of some pretty harsh results, I feel for them. But there is certainly hope, and though Euro 96 won’t be remembered fondly by the Azzurri faithful, it does provide an example of a team, the Czechs, crawling out from an early shutout loss.

For Netherlands fans, there is yet another piece of good news. Since 1980, when the group stage was introduced, only two teams have won by 3-0 or better in their opening game. They were France, who won 3-0 over Denmark to open Euro 2000, and Sweden, who recorded a 5-0 win over Bulgaria in 2004. Both advanced out of the group stage.