England Is Booted From European Championships
David Beckham sent his shot into the crowd, and Portugal went on to defeat England, 6-5, in sudden-death penalty kicks after a 2-2 tie Thursday night at Lisbon, advancing the hosts to the semifinals of the European Championship.
Beckham, who failed to convert a penalty kick in England’s opening 2-1 loss to France, missed badly on the first penalty kick that followed 30 minutes of overtime, appearing to slip and sending the ball well over the crossbar and into the seats.
Beckham, who was not available for comment after the game, also sent a penalty kick over the crossbar in a qualifier against Turkey in October.
England Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson complained to the Union of European Football Assns. that the area around the penalty spot didn’t have enough grass.
“He slipped with his foot once again, unfortunately. Life has to go on,” Eriksson said.
Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo stopped Darius Vassell’s low shot on the seventh penalty kick, then converted the winner himself, beating England goalkeeper David James.
“It’s not new for me to take penalties, but tonight I really wanted to do it,” Ricardo said. “I owed it to all the Portuguese fans.”
England has lost four penalty shootouts, including defeats to Germany in the 1990 World Cup and 1996 European Championship and to Argentina in the 1998 World Cup.
The English defeated Spain on penalties in the 1996 Euro quarterfinals.
England’s Wayne Rooney, tied for the tournament lead with four goals, came out in the 27th minute after breaking his right foot.
“He got injured rather badly,” Eriksson said. “He will be out for I don’t know how many weeks, maybe months.”
Portugal plays the winner of Saturday’s match between Sweden and the Netherlands. In other quarterfinals, defending champion France meets Greece today and the Czech Republic faces Denmark on Sunday.
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Rudi Voeller, who led Germany to the 2002 World Cup final, quit after the three-time European champion was knocked out of Euro 2004 by a 2-1 defeat to the Czech Republic’s second-string team.
Germany, without a victory at the competition since its 1996 title, became the third team ranked in the world’s top 10 to exit in the first round, joining Italy and Spain.
“What hurts is that we didn’t lose to the Czech Republic’s first team but to their B team,” Voeller said.
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One of Mexico’s most popular soccer teams fired former Netherlands coach Leo Beenhakker after two relatively unsuccessful seasons.
Beenhakker had joined Mexico City-based Club America in June 2003 shortly after resigning as coach of the Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam. No replacement was named.
The team also put numerous players on the transfer list, including stars Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Colombian Frankie Oviedo.
