Police in Austria and Switzerland are bracing themselves for a relaxed and trouble-free European Championships following the failure of England, Scotland and their maruading band of mindless hooligans to qualify for attendance. Despite initial fears that English fans might turn up to games anyway in the hope of a bit of "violence by osmosis" and the lack of anything better to do with their summer holidays, the Austrian defence ministry said today that the greatest fear for their personnel was having to share a drink or two with German fans in Vienna's town square.
In other Euro 2008 news, Italy's hopes of winning the tournament were dealt a blow on Monday with the loss of centre-back Fabio Cannavaro with a serious knee injury. The defender collapsed in a heap at training after a challenge from a teammate but was not treated for more than half an hour.
It transpired that medical staff and teammates has assumed that Cannavaro was practising one of the team's many diving and injury feigning drills and it was only his lack of agonised screams and failure to roll around on the ground that alerted the team doctor to the fact that he actually was injured.
