Ball at Euro 2024: The “Battle of Hamburg” ended the controversial Kukcu party

A Benfica player celebrated “in front” of the selection of his former teammate David Jurassic, who will return to his homeland. A game that broke the European card record

Some people now call it the Battle of Hamburg. The duel between the Czechs and Turkey broke the European Championship record in terms of the number of cards in play: 18 yellow cards and 2 red cards. This number was reinforced by the expulsion of Czech Antonin Barak, the first player in the history of the tournament to receive two yellow cards in the first 20 minutes.

Romanian referee Istvan Kovacs had difficulty controlling the disciplinary record after that, and the evidence is that after the final whistle, he sent off Czech Tomas Čuri and issued two other yellow cards, after a situation raised by Benfica. The player Orkun Kokçu celebrated his qualification in front of his opponents.

In the end, the players of both teams held the referee responsible for the negative disciplinary record. “For me, the refereeing was bad. I even spoke to the Turkish captain about the arrogance of the referee. The best referees are those who have no influence on the match, but this referee wanted to be the man of the match. What happened in the end was a reversal of the match. “We were disappointed and tried to show something, but it was nothing special,” said Czech captain Tomas Soucek in the mixed area of ​​the Volkspark Stadium.

Ferdi Kadioglu, the Turkish left-back, was one of the few who escaped the referee's light hand, and in the end he said that the match was not that difficult. He said: “The second half was a little longer, but the referee also gave yellow cards easily.”

After a very anxious 90 minutes, the Turkish team actually showed a lighter appearance towards the end of the match. Sixteen years later, they once again reached the group stage of a European tournament, thus sparking celebrations not only in their country, but also among the vast Turkish community in Germany, which provided strong support for the team.

Montella's team suffered unnecessarily. Jurassic eliminated, Kukju celebrates