Francesco Toldo reveals he “expected penalties from the night before” Italy’s legendary Euro 2000 win over the Netherlands, so studied their specialists.
The goalkeeper performed heroics during that semi-final, where Italy played most of it down to 10 men after Gianluca Zambrotta’s dismissal.
He saved Frank de Boer’s spot-kick and Patrick Kluivert blasted another against the post during the 90 minutes, so when it went to penalties at 0-0, the Dutch seemed psychologically beaten already.
Francesco Toldo reveals he “expected penalties from the night before” Italy’s legendary Euro 2000 win over the Netherlands, so studied their specialists.
The goalkeeper performed heroics during that semi-final, where Italy played most of it down to 10 men after Gianluca Zambrotta’s dismissal.
He saved Frank de Boer’s spot-kick and Patrick Kluivert blasted another against the post during the 90 minutes, so when it went to penalties at 0-0, the Dutch seemed psychologically beaten already.
“They had no idea what was going on, they were totally lost,” Toldo told FCInter1908.it.
“Besides which, the referee had really favoured them as the host nation. We were walking into a trap in that semi-final.
“I had thought to myself that I expected penalties from the night before. So with the floppy disks in my PC, I sat down and studied their spot-kick specialists.”
It certainly paid off, because Italy won the shoot-out 3-1 in Amsterdam, with De Boer and Jaap Stam missing before Toldo saved from Paul Bosvelt.