Serbian soccer fans stop game against Italy
European soccer, relatively free from black eyes in recent years as far as crowd trouble goes, received a pretty good shiner from Serbia’s lunatic fringe Tuesday.
Rioting Serbian fans caused their country’s Euro 2012 qualifying match against Italy in Genoa to be delayed by 35 minutes and then abandoned altogether after only six minutes of play.
There was trouble outside the stadium before the game and more trouble inside during the build-up. Fans tossed flares and fireworks onto the field, cut through or broke down security fences, burned a flag, booed their own national anthem and brawled with riot police.
“Fans this dangerous shouldn’t have arrived in Genoa,” the Italian team’s security director, Roberto Massucci, told the Associated Press. “Due to experience, we were prepared, but we never imagined such a high level of violence.”
There were no reports of any arrests.
Serbian soccer is in a downward spiral, with the national team having been ousted in the first round at the World Cup in South Africa and having won only one Euro 2012 qualifier so far. The fans were especially upset by a home qualifying loss to Estonia on Friday.
“According to the Serbians we have spoken to, the aim of the Serbian fans was to stop the match,” Italy Coach Cesare Prandelli said of Tuesday’s abandoned game.
The outcome, once the dust settles, is likely to be a 3-0 victory awarded to Italy and a possible ban of some sort against Serbia, whose chances of reaching the 2012 European Championship in Poland and Ukraine are now slim to nonexistent.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, England produced the latest in a series of uninspired performances and was held to a scoreless tie by Montenegro at Wembley Stadium, where the home team was booed off the field.
Unbeaten Montenegro, which leads the group, almost snatched a late victory when Milan Jovanovic’s half-volley slammed off the crossbar in the closing minutes.
England felt it should have been awarded a penalty kick earlier when Jovanovic handled the ball, but there was no call by German referee Manuel Grafe, leading to a curt postgame quote from England captain Rio Ferdinand:
“He [Jovanovic] might as well have caught the ball, put it under his shirt and run home with it,” Ferdinand said.
Meanwhile, world and European champion Spain had to rely on a late goal by Fernando Llorente to beat Scotland, 3-2, in Glasgow in a game that saw David Villa finally notch his 45th goal for Spain to overtake Raul and become the country’s all-time scoring leader.
Germany also kept its unbeaten and untied record intact with a 3-0 road victory at Kazakhstan, a result that stretched its group lead over second-place Turkey — which was upset, 1-0, by Azerbaijan — to six points.
“We solved our task here,” Germany Coach Joachim Loew said. “We now have maximum points from our four matches, Turkey surprisingly lost today, and that makes us feel comfortable.”
Lucas Podolski set up goals for Miroslav Klose and Mario Gomez and scored one himself.
The Netherlands easily defeated Sweden, 4-0, in Amsterdam to also maintain a perfect record. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Ibrahim Afellay each scored twice, but the Dutch lost winger Dirk Kuyt to a potentially serious ankle injury that could sideline him for some time.
France, Portugal and Russia continued their resurgence with victories. Goals by Karim Benzema and Yoann Gourcuff helped the French defeat Luxembourg, 2-0, in Metz, while Cristiano Ronaldo, Raul Meireles and Helder Postiga earned the Portuguese a 3-1 win over Iceland in Reykjavik.
Russia had goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev’s penalty-kick save to thank for its 1-0 road win over Macedonia in Skopje.
Euro 2012 qualifying play now takes a break until March.
grahame.jones@latimes.com
