England and Italy managers have moulded a style and attitude that resonates with the players and their own publicAs the 2024 European Championship will take place in Germany I am naturally interested in the appearance and impact of the home teams at the current tournament. It is important for the atmosphere and reach of a tournament that a home team plays with courage and spreads optimism. It is important that it has characters within the squad with whom fans can identify. That the players are aware that they are playing at home and that the crowd can feel it. Related: England beat Denmark in extra time to set up Euro 2020 final with Italy Related: Italy into Euro 2020 final...
The striker scored the goal that sent this semi-final into extra time – but there was heartbreak to come in the shootoutAlvaro Morata once likened facing Giorgio Chiellini to trying to take a banana off a gorilla in a cage. Here it looked like he had taken something much, much bigger from him but, in the end, Italy reached out and took it back: after an epic battle that place in the final on Sunday is theirs, not Spain’s.For Luis Enrique’s side, and especially for his striker, where there had been redemption, scoring the goal that had saved Spain once again, there was now regret, the cruelness deepened by how calmly Jorginho rolled in the decisive penalty at the culmination...
While they are on a long unbeaten run, Italian win over Belgium was their first major tournament win against a ‘big’ teamIf we needed one moment to sum up Italy’s transformation over the past four years, it arrived in the 44th minute at the Allianz Arena. Lorenzo Insigne’s goal was a thing of beauty, cutting in from the left and curling the ball from the edge of the area into the far corner of the net with such precision that Thibaut Courtois had no chance.The forward had started his run from the halfway line. This was Insigne distilled, a goal that he has scored countless times down the years. The finish might not always be so flawless, but the ambitious...
Juventus winger on as a substitute pierces dense fog of attrition with a goal to bring the Azzuri’s Euros back to lifeThere was no sense of inevitability as the ball landed at Federico Chiesa’s feet. No real feeling of grace. An agonising, attritional 95 minutes of football had seen to all that. Like tired boxers in a 13th round, Italy and Austria were simply circling each other, waiting to see whose legs gave way first. The awkward high bounce, forcing Chiesa to control the ball with his head to prevent it from going out of play, simply reinforced the notion of a game in which nothing had worked and nothing would work.And then in a shuffle and a swing of...
Returning midfielder added A-list class to the tournament’s standout team as they secured top spot against WalesWell, that was tense. Kind of. On a gruelling afternoon in Rome Wales qualified for the last 16 of Euro 2020. Thanks to the vagaries of the format they did so through a shifting fog of almost-drama, a whirl of semi-excitement, as Group A did its best to conjure some genuine final-round tension out of Uefa’s self-own of a 24-team Euros.Not that anyone in red cared. It is now two out of two for Wales: two European Championships and two knockout-stage runs, a wonderful achievement for this high-craft, brilliantly likable generation of players and for the caretaker manager, Robert Page. Related: Matteo Pessina ensures...