Hungary salvages 1-1 draw with Iceland amid crowd trouble
MARSEILLE, France (AP) - Birkir Saevarsson scored a late own-goal to hand Hungary a 1-1 draw with Iceland on Saturday in another European Championship match affected by crowd trouble.
Saevarsson turned a cross from Nemanja Nikolic into his own net as Iceland was headed for its first victory at a major tournament.
"We were so close," said Iceland forward Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, who was named man of the match. "It's quite a big loss for us, this draw."
As Hungary's players celebrated the 88th-minute equalizer, Hungarian fans threw flares which landed on the field and among nearby police officers. Several loud bangs were heard and there was a cloud of smoke, delaying the restart.
Iceland took the lead in the 40th minute when Gylfi Sigurdsson scored from the penalty spot, hitting the ball low and hard to veteran goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly's right.
The penalty followed a chaotic scramble in the area after Kiraly caught, then dropped, a cross from Johann Gudmundsson. In the ensuing melee, Russian referee Sergei Karasev ruled that defender Tamas Kadar had fouled Aron Gunnarsson.
"There was definitely a touch," Iceland co-coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said. "Some would say it was a soft penalty."
It was Iceland's second straight 1-1 draw, but the players collapsed in despair on the field after the final whistle, a far cry from the jubilation that greeted the draw with Portugal four days earlier.
"We should have kept calm and played the ball more," Sigthorsson said. "When we got the ball we weren't calm enough."
Iceland veteran Eidur Gudjohnsen nearly scored a winner with the final kick of the match, but his low shot from the edge of the box was deflected wide.
Hungary now has four points in Group F and looks set to qualify for the round of 16. Iceland has two points and next plays Austria.
"I think we've invested everything to deserve to win this game. We have forced this goal and I think we deserved it," Hungary coach Bernd Storck said. "They never gave up. We deserved this point."
Four third-place teams in the six groups will advance to the round of 16, so Iceland will know what it needs to do against Austria because it will be among the final teams to play.
"We're really lucky that we're in the last group so we can if three points are enough or if we have to go for the win," Hallgrimson said. "Although I think we will always go for the game and go for the three points, it's good to know when to risk it."
Before the match, Hungarian fans clashed with stewards and a small group of French police as they forced their way over a fence in a corner section of the Stade Velodrome in an attempt to cross into another stand and join a hardcore fan group behind the goal.
A flare was later waved during the national anthems in the Hungarian end, which was packed with supporters in black t-shirts, and a firecracker was thrown onto the field from the same part of the stand after the referee awarded the penalty.
Another flare was lit after the final whistle when Hungarian players ran to celebrate with supporters.
Hungary is likely to face a significant fine from UEFA after repeated crowd trouble, a day after fighting and flare-throwing by Croatian supporters.