Football
Euro 2024: fallout from Scotland’s exit, Croatia v Italy buildup – live news
Key events
Vargas update
Per PA Media:
Hungary striker Barnabas Varga broke several facial bones and suffered a concussion during his country’s 1-0 victory over Scotland. The Ferencvaros forward required lengthy treatment on the pitch after colliding with Scotland goalkeeper Angus Gunn in the second half of their Euro 2024 match in Stuttgart on Sunday evening.
Hungary players had quickly signalled that the 29-year-old was in trouble and, after six minutes of treatment, Varga was carried off the field on a stretcher while sheets were held up to shield him from view.
The Hungarian Football Association released an update on Varga’s condition late on Sunday evening. The statement on X read: “Several bones in Barnabas Varga’s face were broken during the collision during the match, and he also suffered a concussion. Surgery is most likely to be expected.
“He spends the night in the hospital in Stuttgart. The whole team is rooting for him!”
Lovely photo essay from Tom Jenkins here.
Let’s go off to the England camp where the squad who said last week they paid no attention to the coverage back home are, er, kicking back against the critics back home.
Should Hungary go through, they are likely to be without their forward.
Sunday’s other game saw the hosts show both their weakness and determination.
And so in a way this was a kind of hazing: a stress test under laboratory conditions, with qualification already secure but a number of flaws that required the scrutiny of a strong Swiss side to expose. How would this team – which until recently was actually very bad – deal with its first big setback, its first indifferent crowd? How would that defence hold up against a team unafraid to run at them? And what happens if you really, really need a goal in the 91st minute?
Was it a penalty? Personal view: in the Premier League that would have been but the Uefa expediency means the game is played on once the refs have waved play on, and the doubt needs to be greater.
Their hearts were broken, sorrow sorrow. Ewan Murray was our match reporter.
Scotland huffed and puffed. Hungary’s play generally broke down 25 yards from goal until stoppage time, when a basketball match broke out. Steve Clarke and the Tartan Army will be wounded by what transpired here but the harsh reality is over the course of three games they have looked short of the levels required. Scotland promised to have learned lessons from the Euros of three years ago. An identical points return, one, raises questions over that.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/audio/2024/jun/24/scotland-crash-out-of-euro-2024-football-daily Hear Ewan on Euro 2024 Daily too.
Jonathan Wilson on a night when the party ended.
“No Scotland, no party,” they sang. Let’s see about that.
Preamble
Good morning. Well, unless you are Scottish and enveloped by an all-too familiar feeling of, well, failure. The group stage proved the nemesis once more, and a vale of tears deeper than the Vale of Leven is being washed away. Germany will be far quieter without them; you couldn’t move for Scots in the host cities and beyond. But the show goes on, and there’s a big game later today with Croatia taking on Italy. The last stand of Modric et al? Or the exit of the defending champions?
All that and more to follow before Group B’s finale kicks off. Join us.
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