Euro 2020: England Tops Croatia; Eriksen ‘Was Gone,’ Doctor Says

The decision to restart the game came under heavy criticism in Denmark, including from former members of the team.

North Macedonia’s 37-year-old captain, Goran Pandev, provided his country’s highlight.

One probably would not blame Peseiro if he did not even know the names of some of the players who might be available to run out for Venezuela at the Mane Garrincha stadium in Brasília.

Bolsonaro’s critics blame his cavalier approach to controlling the coronavirus — he has eschewed rules on social distancing, for instance — for Brazil’s plight.

His supporters frequently wear the canary yellow shirts of the five-time world champions when they take to the street in demonstrations of support for Bolsonaro, and he took the field with the team when Brazil lifted its last Copa America title.

The stadium, built at a cost of close to $1 billion for the 2014 World Cup, has been little used since then.

England, and Sterling in particular, has gotten behind Croatia’s back line a few times in the first half.

Now it’s Phillips taking a rip through traffic but Livakovic dives to punch it away.

The gesture, a signal of solidarity with social justice efforts and the Black Lives Matter movement, has been a staple of European games for a year.

Capacity at 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium will be limited to 25 percent today, so 22,500 fans.

He could have selected Jack Grealish, but he might have had to leave out Declan Rice.

More curiously, neither of his specialist left backs were picked: Luke Shaw starts on the bench; Ben Chilwell gets the day off.

This game will not define England’s tournament; who plays at left back in the opening game will certainly not guarantee either success or failure in July.

Croatia’s team contains far fewer surprises and the only real one, the teenager Josko Gvardiol starting at left back, was the result of an injury to the regular there, Borna Barisic.

Medical teams, summoned urgently by teammates and opponents who immediately sensed the severity of his condition, worked quickly to stabilize Eriksen on the grass.

In an effort to protect Eriksen, his teammates and members of Denmark’s staff formed a circle around him to shield him, and the medics, as they worked.

The match was briefly suspended but resumed about 90 minutes later — with the consent of players on both teams, and only after the Danes had received word on Eriksen’s improved condition.

A few players were in tears as they warmed up for the resumption of play.

“The attitude was, ‘Let’s go out and try to do what we can.’ And then we talked about allowing to have all these feelings.

The fans cheered their team, which has said it will continue the gesture before every game, and Southgate’s choices — a defender starting on the wrong side, a young and inexperienced midfield — were not an issue.

The lead arrived in the 57th minute, started in England’s half by Kyle Walker, who fed Phillips.

The win sent England, for now, to the top of its first-round group.

Four minutes of added time are announced after a brief scare for Bellingham, who was hurt in a head-to-head collision.

Kane, likely still stinging from his brush with the goal post, is off, replaced by 17-year-old Jude Bellingham.

He cuts left, look up and picks out Sterling, who had dashed in after hanging back in midfield as the play developed.

For 20 minutes, England looked just like the country hoped it could be.

He has a wealth of young attacking talent, after all; it is incumbent on him to find a way to get the best out of it.

As the half wore on, though, the initial energy seemed to fizzle and sputter and, eventually, die out.

The irony to this game is that it may, in fact, be better not to win it: topping the group, because of the vagaries of the draw, likely means a harder opponent in the last 16 than finishing second in the group.

Some among their number were, Hjulmand said, “completely emotionally finished” by it all: the scene of their fallen teammate on the grass, their thoughts of what could have been, the decision to resume the match.

By that stage, they knew that their worst fears had not been realized.

Within an hour or so of watching Eriksen collapse on the field, of rushing to his side, of shielding him from the cameras, a message came through from the city’s Rigshospitalet, not far from the stadium, that Eriksen was conscious.

UEFA, then, offered the players a choice: they could either complete their first game of Euro 2020 against Finland on Saturday night, or resume it on Sunday afternoon.

He had placed him in the recovery position, to prevent him swallowing his tongue, and then arranged the rest of the squad to form a protective circle around Eriksen as the stadium’s medical team — as well as Denmark’s national team doctor, Morten Boesen — had tended to him on the field.

Many of the players had turned away, but they knew how urgent it was: Boesen confirmed that, after he had arrived, Eriksen had stopped breathing, and his heart had stopped beating.

“He was in doubt whether he could continue, and gave it a shot, but it could not be done.” Denmark has said it will make counseling available to those players who feel they need it.

Roberto Martínez, the Belgium coach, admitted his team — scheduled to play its opening match only an hour after the Denmark game — had not wanted to “talk about football” as they waited desperately for news of a player many of his squad has called a teammate at club level.

England’s squad, watching as it waited for its first game today, has plenty of links to Eriksen — Harry Kane, the captain, played alongside him at Tottenham — and had watched in anguish, too.

First and foremost, there is the fact that he is the captain of England’s national soccer team, a status that bestows upon its bearer the sort of profile unavailable to most athletes, particularly in tournament years.

He scores goals from close range and from long distance, for good teams and bad.

He has scored so many that he is seventh on the list of the Premier League’s career top scorers; with a fair wind, he will be third next year at this time and within touching distance of the record-holder, Alan Shearer, not long after he turns 30.

It is a neat trick: for a player of his status, and an athlete of his generation, to be as well known as he is and yet not well known at all.

What Rory found is that there are a lot of things everyone knows about Harry Kane.

Castagne, who plays for Leicester City in England’s Premier League, was substituted in the 27th minute Saturday after a violent head-to-head collision with Russia midfielder Daler Kuzyaev.

…Read the full story