Who said sportsmanship was dead? Watch this video from the final of Euro 2012 and see the Spanish captain Iker Casillas call to referee Pedro Proença in the dying moments of Spain’s four nil victory over Italy, as he asks for the game to be brought to a close early out of respect for the losing side.

Respect for Italia

… the institutional goalkeeper is seen to say to the Portuguese official in this clip (complete with helpful translations):

The referee does actually blow the final whistle immediately after this interaction, but we’re reliably informed that this was because the three minutes of injury time were already up – not due to Casillas’s intervention.