Declan Rice insulted Slovakia’s head coach Francesco Calzona by calling him a ‘bald c***’ following England’s dramatic win at Euro 2024 on Sunday.
Gareth Southgate’s team narrowly escaped a significant upset, almost losing 1-0 to Slovakia until Jude Bellingham scored a last-minute equalizer in the 94th minute of injury time.
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Harry Kane then scored a header in the first minute of extra time, securing a 2-1 victory for England, who will now face Switzerland in the Euro 2024 quarterfinal on July 6.
After the final whistle, Rice had a heated exchange with Calzona. The Slovakia coach approached referee Umut Meler and pushed Rice in the chest before continuing his discussion with the official.
Rice responded angrily, but England players Ivan Tony and Aaron Ramsdale intervened to pull the Arsenal midfielder away from the confrontation.
Speaking to MailOnline, expert lip-reader Jeremy Freeman revealed Rice said to Calzone: ‘Shut up, p***, oi, shut up, you bald c***.’
When asked about the incident involving England’s Rice, Calzona said: ‘Rice was supposed to go to the referees and say goodbye and then leave.
‘I had to speak to the referees and he was carrying on, continuing to speak. Then he apologised and it all ended there.’
After the game, Calzona also revealed that he was unhappy with the referee for his failure to punish England’s time-wasting in the closing stages of extra time.
‘We probably should have been more aggressive in terms of man-marking but this is how things went, I accept that,’ Calzona said.
‘What I don’t accept is one minute of stoppage time with their goalkeeper [Jordan Pickford] wasting a whole lot of time.
‘I didn’t like the refereeing, I absolutely did not like that. I didn’t like the way the three officials behaved, they were always coming to our bench, they ignored the other bench, I really did not appreciate this but this is not why we lost.
‘I’m proud of my team. If we had been not so attentive all the time that’s something I will review when I watch the match tomorrow but I must congratulate all my players.
‘The only thing I didn’t appreciate is that the way England were obstructing, were wasting time, was not punished.’
