Italy Survive A Scare

There’s a lot more you can learn about a team when they lose a game or turn in a below-par performance. Italy’s navigated their group stage with a 100% win record for the first time since Euro 2000, scoring seven goals and conceding none. Their performances attracted a lot of positive attention as they broke away from the usual defensive, counter-attacking Italian style.

Progressively, I feel Italy’s challengers have got stronger after the first game against Turkey. Against Switzerland, Italy scored at the right time to kill off any hope of the Swiss mounting a comeback.  Then against the Welsh, the team was rotated heavily and that match became comfortable after a harsh red card for Ethan Ampadu.

Italy Rattled

This morning against Austria, I felt Italy dallied too long with their final ball and shot. That allowed the Austrians who were sitting back in numbers to close down quickly. The one quick, incisive move Italy created ended with a shot by Nicolo Barella saved by Daniel Bachmann. Ciro Immobile then went closest to scoring when he took a shot early but unfortunately hit the bar. In the second half, Austria had the better of the game as they pressed Italy hard and combined with their physical approach rattled the Italians. Italy had a scare when Marco Arnautovic’s goal was ruled out by the VAR for being offside. It would be interesting to see how Italy would respond had the goal stood or if they would be able to respond or not.

Difference Makers

The difference was made by the quality of substitutes Italy could call upon, that and the tiring Austrian legs and minds made the difference. It was an ugly win but I believe it is important for a team with Cup-winning aspirations to grind out wins when the going gets tough. It is comforting to know that the new Italy still had the quality of winning ugly like the old Italy. There are still some doubts about the team’s ability to see out a game because even at 2-0 it didn’t look entirely comfortable. I would expect Roberto Mancini and staff to analyse this win and correct the wrongs from this performance. It would be impossible to completely eradicate the flaws but they could at least limit them.

Records

This win means that Italy has now set a new national record for the number of consecutive wins, 31. The previous record was set by Vittorio Pozzo who won Italy’s second World Cup and an Olympic gold medal in his run of 30 unbeaten games. Italy also set a new record for the longest run without conceding goals, 1168 minutes beating Dino Zoff’s 1143 minutes between 1972-1974. England has not been a kind venue for Italy in past tournaments, they exited the group stage at the 1966 World Cup and Euro 96 so this was a small victory in that regard. Finally, Federico Chiesa matched what his father did at Euro 96 and that was to score in a European Championships match, the first father-son duo to do so.