“The Yugoslav national team leaves training camp in Sweden disappointed,” he writes Fidelity just before the start of the tournament. “UEFA excluded the team from participating in the European Championship due to UN sanctions.”
One of the sanctions of UN Security Council Resolution 757 was clear: “Yugoslav athletes are prohibited from participating in sporting events.” The reason for the Security Council’s decision was the ongoing civil war in Yugoslavia, involving ethnic cleansing and mass killings.
The international sports federations thus lost their monopoly position: “From now on, politicians will help decide.” This event hit the Yugoslav team hard. “The players are not generals or assassins. Their exclusion is illegal,” said a member of the Yugoslav delegation.
The Danes did not return from their vacation in vain
But it was in vain. Yugoslavia left and in its place came Denmark, which had finished second in the qualifying group. Expectations were very low, even among their own players. In fact, most of them were already on vacation. Striker Flemming Povlsen stated after qualifying that Denmark had no business competing in the European Championship. “We lose everything.”
That pessimism seemed justified when Denmark tied the first game and lost the second. Thanks to an unexpected victory over France, they reached the semi-finals. There Denmark faced the defending champions Netherlands. “While the entire Netherlands was already warming up for the final against Germany, the Dutch team stumbled against Denmark. The party has calmed down, the euphoria is over.”
And then, suddenly, the Danish ‘camp team’ found itself in the final against Germany. “We no longer underestimate anyone,” the Germans previously declared. However, things went wrong: “Like the Netherlands, they were drowned by the force of the Danes.” The Scandinavians won 2-0 and were crowned European champions for the first time. The Danes aptly described the joy after winning the final: “This is the largest popular festival since the liberation from the German occupiers in 1945.”
In the ‘From this month to last’ section Fidelity remembers a historical event from the newspaper archive.
Read also: Why this Euro Cup is already a dream come true for Albania
Albania, one of the smallest and poorest countries in Europe, lost the opening match against Italy (2-1), but also wrote football history.
