Group1. West Germany – Italy 1-1. The opening match and between the favourites. Not a memorable game…
More or less, defense prevailed and won. Hard battle and no fun. By now hardly anybody expected great show from opening games, yet in the same time everybody wished exactly a great show.
Italy eventually opened the scores – after enormous double mistake, starting with Matthaus and ending with Herget, Mancini scored. Beckenbauer was furious after the match, blaming mostly Herget, and was right: the defender was not some green youngster, but veteran both in age and national team experience. But not only those two were to blame – as a whole, rather mysterious Italian team (at the time) was the stronger and better on the field. However, the referee stood against them – and it was not just Italian opinion. At the time the rules stipulated that a goalkeeper could make no more than 4 steps with ball in his hand. Zenga made more than four and the referee blew his whistle, giving the well forgotten nowadays ‘indirect kick’ inside the penalty area. All by the rules, but for years referees put a blind eye to this rule, recognizing its stupidity. Not just the Italians saw the referee as a more than pedant, but rather as maliciously biased against Italy. ‘Scandalous’ refereeing – that was the opinion of the British press too. However, the referee was formally right. Since one cannot score directly from such a kick, traditionally defending teams built huge walls, sometimes behind their goalie, if there was not enough space in front of him, to prevent quick short pass to staying near by teammate who could now kick the ball directly in the net. Italy made exactly that, but for some reason the wall fell apart in the last moment, yet, preventing Zenga to see where the ball was going and Germany equalized. Both goals were scored early in the second half, nothing else happened to the end, and the match ended 1-1, only to create a mountain of critical articles the next day.
Denmark – Spain 2-3. The memories of the Spanish win at the 1986 World Cup were not just fresh, but indicative – Denmark by now was in clear descent, too old, too tired. Predictions were slightly in favour of the Spaniards and they proved right, except it was not 5-1, like in 1986. Spain was not particularly impressive, but Denmark was worse.
Spain was visibly stronger and with time – Denmark seemingly tired and not up to the task.
It was not exactly huge Spanish dominance, but when it came to scoring Butrageno was the man. Denmark trailed behind, but they were able to respond twice with equalizers. However, Butrageno’s goal was crucial – it was the second Spanish goal and there was strong feeling for offside. After the match the Danes complained and the Spanish did not exactly objected the protest. But no matter the result, no matter what was said by coaches, the writing was on the wall: Denmark was in decline. Sepp Piontek, who shortly before the finals extended his contract to 1990 now said he was going to resign at the end of the finals.
West Germany – Denmark 2-0. This time the Germans played better, but it was a bit of a kicking a dead dog.
Yet, killing the dead dog was not great – it was rather rough battle, the kind of football Germans usually win.
You fight, you win. But this time the Germans looked better. Beckenbauer made no bones about the victory – he was brief, saying that there was nos secret the whole idea was winning and the next game was more important. The he rushed to the waiting helicopter not to miss Italy-Spain. Morten Olsen, Soren Lerby and Preben Elkjaer-Larsen were resigned – they honestly said they were not the same players, it was not the same team as four years back, it was the end of their era. Almost nobody noticed that Peter Schmeichel played for Denmark in this game – and not because he was a flop, but because the team was dead.
Italy – Spain 1-0. To a point, the Spanish coach Munoz surprised everybody with his ultradefensive tactic. The idea was to bait the Italians into attacking and beat them with counterattacks. It did not work … Italy in attack? Almost contradiction of terms.
The result was particularly unattractive match, played largely in the middle of the field. For a long time it looked like anti-football would win and Spain would extract vital point.
It is enormously hard to beat the Italians by their own kind of football – it took just the minimal mistake and disorientation from the Spanish defense and Vialli scored. One can blame Zubizaretta, who could have reacted better, but it is fruitless – Italians are masters of taking advantage from practically nothing. Go and try scoring after Italy gets the lead… After the game Munoz made his second surprise, stating that his initial tactics were not defensive, but Italy pushed his team into that. A laughable statemen, unless he was kidding himself. Briegel pontificated that Italy is the best team at this finals. Beckenbauer, always the diplomat, said the match was on high level and Italy was world class. But he was not going to change his tactics and will play against Spain the same way his team played against Denmark, aiming at a win. In translation… Spain was beatable, but mostly by fighting.
West Germany – Spain 2-0. Calculation were in full swing: BRD and Italy needed nothing more than ties and that was perfectly easy for each of them, that simple. Denmark was out; Spain was hardly the team to attack relentlessly with imagination. Only big Italian loss would qualify Spain to the next – by calculations, but nobody really believed such thing possible. Before the match both Beckenbauer and Munoz said they were going for large scoring, which was unbelievable, but on the pitch the Germans played their best game so far.
Young Klinsmann was making his name, troubling Zubizarreta.
Rudi Voeller had wonderful match this time – or at last, for he was one of the most criticized German players so far. Finally he played as it was expected from him and scored both German goals. Matthaus also played strong game at last. Spain had no answer. This time the German press liked what they so – and the Kaiser was again the Kaiser: ‘Franz, this was your best match’, wrote a Frankfurt newspaper.
Italy – Denmark 2-0. Meaningless match for Denmark, already eliminated; Italy needed a tie just to be sure – not much at stake. Situation often spurring the outsider to perform better than before and this was one such match – Denmark played their best game at the finals. But Italy was deeply entrenched and eventually not only blunted the Danish efforts, but started looking ahead too. Especially in the second half. And scored 2 goals.
Altobelli scored the first in the 66th minute.
Vialli – or De Agostini? – made it 2-0 in the 87th minute. Schmeichel was not yet the superstar we know today.
After the game Vicini was happy and said the Italian program minimum was fulfilled better than anticipated. Piontek was also on somewhat positive mood: no tragedy happened and the future was not so bleak, there were talented young players and rebuilding could be successful.
1. West Germany 2 1 0 5-1 5
2. Italy 2 1 0 4-1 5
3. Spain 1 0 2 3-5 2
4. Denmark 0 0 3 2-7 0
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