Soccer teams stop trying, just stand there for 3 minutes to make sure they tie
Portugal had a 1-0 lead late in the game when Sweden's Simon Tibbling tied it up at 1-1 in the 89th minute. After that, both teams stopped pushing forward. Portugal held the ball near the center circle for all of stoppage time, passing it back and forth now and then, and Sweden stood around and let them run out the clock.
After the game, Sweden's Victor Nilsson Lindelöf admitted to Expressen that after his team's late equalizing goal he talked to a Portugal player about playing for a tie.
"I just told Bernardo Silva that we would take it easy," he said.
It makes total rational sense for both teams to play for a draw in that situation, but that doesn't make it any less absurd to watch. Here's what it looked like (via Metro):
When a draw sees both teams qualify from the group. #Under21 pic.twitter.com/zSDS2MENIM
- Sam (@samuelJayC) June 24, 2015
This is about as close as Sweden got to pressing Portugal in the last three minutes:
UEFA
This sort of scenario is relatively common in international competitions, but rarely are teams so blatant about it.
The Italian media has accused the two teams of "cheating."
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