Spain beat Italy on the second day of Group B of Euro 2024. In Gelsenkirchen, Spalletti’s Azzurri were beaten 1-0 by La Roja, in a match dominated for large stretches by coach de la Fuente’s team. After several chances for the Red Furies, with Nico Williams as the absolute protagonist, Donnarumma could do nothing on Calafiori’s unfortunate deflection in the 54th minute which caused the decisive own goal. Spain qualified for the round of 16.
These are the words of Gianluigi Donnarummareleased to Sky Sports in the post-match: “We all win and lose together. We definitely need to improve in some aspects, but the team gave everything. We needed to manage better, then they have quality and they hurt you. Now we have to wrap our heads around it because there’s a important game against Croatia to go through. We had to be aggressive and not give them possession, but in my opinion we missed too many easy passes and they recovered balls in the midfield which, we know, hurt you. The last 10-15 minutes we have done well, but we should have done it earlier. Difference with 3 years ago. I think there was too much impetuosity in going and looking for solutions forward instead of dribbling and making them run, even going forward we were unable to keep the balls up and up the pitch? we know they have quality and if you make so many mistakes it’s normal that at one moment or another they score a goal for you.”
Here is the match scoreboard:
Spain (4-3-3): Unai Simon; Carvajal, Le Normand, Laporte, Cucurella; Pedri (26′ st Baena), Rodri, Ruiz (49′ st Merino); Yamal (26′ st Ferran), Morata (33′ st Oyarzabal), N. Williams (33′ st Perez). Available: Raya, Remiro, Nacho, Vivian, Joselu, Olmo, Grimaldo, Zubimendi, Navas, Fermin Lopez. All.: de la Fuente
Italy (4-3-2-1): Donnarumma; Di Lorenzo, Bastoni, Calafiori, Dimarco; Barella, Jorginho (1′ st Cristante), Pellegrini (36′ st Raspadori); Frattesi (1′ st Cambiaso), Chiesa (19′ st Zaccagni); Scamacca (19′ st Retegui). Available: Vicario, Meret, Buongiorno, Gatti, Darmian, Bellanova, Mancini, Fagioli, El Shaarawy, Folorunsho. All.: Spalletti
Referee: Vincic (Slovenia)
Scorers: 10′ st aut. Calafiori
Booked: Rodri, Le Normand, Carvajal (S), Donnarumma, Cristante (I)
