Brief explanation of what I mean, this week was again the anniversary of the “Night of Seville”, the semi-final between France and Germany at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. The German goalkeeper Toni Schumacher fouled the Frenchman Patrick Battiston in an extremely unsportsmanlike manner, but was not sanctioned for it, Battiston had to be substituted with an heavy injury, Germany won in a penalty shoot-out.
​
There was a documentary on this this week, I knew that this had caused great indignation in France at the time. What was new to me was that the German Chancellor wrote to French President François Mitterrand only because of this match, because the German-French friendship was seen to be in danger.
​
Were there similar events in your countries?
2 comments
In the early 1930s, the England cricket team were playing against Australia and were using a new tactic that consisted of bowling the ball in such a way that it would bounce higher than usual and (if he failed to hit the ball) strike the batsman in the body. The Australians were outraged and branded the English players “unsportsmanlike”. The English, in turn, were insulted and threatened to boycott any future games against Australia. Things escalated until the Australian prime minister had to explain to the Australian cricket board that the British public were on the verge of boycotting Australian products and the country simply couldn’t afford that, leading to the Australians withdrawing their accusations against the English team.
Well, there was that one time the bavarian police fucked up security for the Olympic Games so badly that eleven members of the israeli team were murdered.