Serbia fans riot during New Zealand defeat

Published on Sunday 30 May 2010 00:34

SERBIA'S stand-in captain Nemanja Vidic had to appeal for calm over the microphone as his country's fans rioted during the second-half of a 1-0 World Cup warm-up defeat by New Zealand yesterday. Around 10,000 Serbia fans, mostly expatriates living in Austria, attended the match and trouble erupted in the second half when they threw burning flares, bottles and missiles on to the pitch.

Several invaded the pitch and had to be dragged away by security before Manchester United's Vidic stepped in to urge calm as the match officials and New Zealand's players were getting ready to walk off. The match was held up for several minutes before restarting.

The ugly scenes compounded a miserable afternoon for Serbia with New Zealand's Shane Smeltz scoring the only goal in the 22nd minute.

Substitute Fernando Llorente rescued Spain with an injury-time winner in a 3-2 victory over Saudi Arabia in Innsbruck. Osama Hawsawi gave Saudi Arabia a shock lead and although David Villa and Xabi Alonso scored to turn things around, Mohammed Al-Sahlawi's 74th-minute goal appeared to have denied the European champions. However, Athletic Bilbao striker Llorente netted a minute into injury time.

Celtic midfielder Landry Nguemo was last night named in Cameroon coach Paul Le Guen's final 23-man World Cup squad.