#4 Italy’s conspiracy theory
Italians are famous for many things. Some of them include pizza, defending and building their own conspiracy theories to play the victim after elimination from major tournaments. However, their Euro 2004 exit happened in such an unfortunate way that their frustration was perhaps justified.
With just a round of games to go in the group stages, Italy could only reach the next if they won against Bulgaria and if the other group game between Denmark and Sweden didn’t end up with a draw higher than 1-1.
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As you may have already guessed by now, Italy won their tie, however, Denmark and Sweden played out a 2-2 draw. The game ended dubiously as Sweden’s equaliser came through Mattias Jonson in the 89th minute. The doubts were further deepened when it was revealed that the bookies had an unusually high amount of money placed on a 2-2 draw.
This didn’t go down well with the Italians with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon even accusing the Nordic teams of fixing the game, something that was never proven.
