TURKEY 0-3 DENMARK CROATIA 0-3 PORTUGAL RUSSIA 3-3 CZECH REPUBLIC ITALY 0-0 GERMANY

STORY OF THE DAY World Cup finalists two years earlier, Italy fail to get out of their group at a tournament for the first time since 1974. To avoid an airport full of flung tomatoes, the Azzurri need a better result than the Czechs, who beat Arrigo Sacchi’s semi-reserves five days earlier. But Zola’s penalty at Old Trafford is kept out by an inspired Andreas Kopke, and Germany’s 10 men hold on for a draw.

At about 9.15pm that still seems enough for Italy, owing to simultaneous events at Anfield. At 2-0 down, Russia need to score five in order to qualify themselves – and give it a good go, surging 3-2 up with five minutes left. But then Vladimir Smicer nets his first international goal to send the Czechs through and Italy home.

In Group D, Portugal find a cutting edge for their lovely build-up play and steamroller an already-qualified, much-changed Croatia 3-0 in Nottingham. That means it’s curtains for the holders, Denmark, despite their 3-0 triumph at Hillsborough over happy-to-be-here Turkey. THE GOOD Twelve goals in three games (split weirdly between four teams scoring three and four teams scoring none), with the other clash a tense tie between two titans, ending in a big story. Teatime offers Brian Laudrup at his most exquisite as well as a Portugal side looking like a genuine threat, then the evening meal has Italy throwing everything forward at the same time as a six-goal thriller some 30 miles away. That was the groups; bring on the knockouts. THE BAD Sacchi never really recovers from Euro 96 – by December he’s back at Milan, but the magic is gone. And Paolo Maldini, heralded as the leading left-back in the world, has been mystifyingly mediocre (yet automatically gets voted into the team of tournament) and he’s turning 28... although, as it happens, he’ll tot up another 13 seasons, another 50-odd caps and another two Champions League trophies. THEY SAID WHAT?! “English grass invites you to walk on it, run on it, even throw yourself on it; I have decided to grow English grass in front of my house at home” – Croatia’s reserve keeper, Marijan Mrmic, who played in a friendly at Wembley two months previously and today gets to throw himself around the City Ground. THE MEDIA After the national team’s early elimination, Daily Record billboards promise a “12-page Scotland Agony Special in colour!” IN OTHER NEWS... Eschewing alternative options like Bromley-by-bow, the Birmingham NEC and Derby County’s still-in-progress Pride Park, John Major’s Tory government settles on an underused and underloved stretch of the Greenwich peninsula as the place for planned exhibition space, the Millennium Dome.