Last night Denmark played their immediate neighbor Sweden in a crucial qualifying match only one team would advance from. The day started with a rude awakening of yellow and blue-clad Swedes beer-fortifying at 7am just outside my window. As the day went of the city was full of red and white clad Danes as well as blue and yellow Swedes. Both parties wearing colored wigs, hats, scarves, pants, shoes, you name it. Lots of public drinking, but everyone was very civil. It was quite fun.

The game started at 7pm and within 30 minutes it was 3:0 Sweden. The apartment party where I watched became glum. Then Denmark got their first goal and it was halftime. The second 45 minutes of play started and before two long Denmark scored a second and then a third needle goal that slid withing nanometers of three Swedes. The apartment exploded as the stadium did just a couple kilometers away.

Denmark seemed to put blocked shot after blocked shot on the goal, though Sweden was still playing hard and not without chances.

With 15 minutes left a Swede and a Dane were jocking in the Danish box as a Swedish attacker was getting place for a strike. The Swede and the Dane exchanged punches, the latter’s being very obvious and the German ref rightly gave him a red card and Sweden a direct kick which is often an automatic goal. As the teams were summing up what just happened a crazed Dane jumped onto the field and charged the ref. A Danish player was able to pull him off after not much more then a glancing blow, but that was it. European Football rules, for very obvious reason, have a zero tolerance for fans attacking refs, opposing teams, etc. The refs paused the game and convened on their own. They returned to say the game was over and Sweden won 3:0. End of story.

Well the story of the crazed fan will only be beginning. I hope his countrymen will be a little more accepting of his demented passion as they were of Steve Bartman whos play-interference lost the playoff for the Chicago Cubs. So far it’s known the Danish hooligan is a Danish national that was arrested and live in Sweden