Right, I’m off. Here’s the match report again. Bye!
Well then. Italy: champions in waiting, or destined to crumble at the first proper challenge? That’s 10 successive clean sheets now, which is extremely impressive even if those clean sheets have been claimed against Estonia, Poland, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, San Marino, Czechia, Turkey and now Switzerland. I think they’re excellent, but fear they’ve got a heartbreaking drama-packed 4-3 quarter-final defeat lurking in their near future.
There’s a report on this game here (with Jonathan Liew’s version to follow shortly):
Final score: Italy 3-0 Switzerland
90+3 mins: It’s over! Italy are through to the knockout bits!
90+2 mins: The keeper should have done quite a lot better with that goal. Goal difference could be key when it comes to ranking the third-placed teams, too.
90+1 mins: Italy are three additional minutes away from confirming their place in the knockout bits.
GOAL! Italy 3-0 Switzerland! (Immobile, 89 mins)
They’ve only gone and done another one! Italy chip the ball into the area but Rodriguez wins it, brings it down and passes it into midfield. Once there, Italy swarm, win the ball back, and it rolls to Immobile who turns and smears a 25-yarder into the corner, kissing the keeper’s fingertips on the way!
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86 mins: Locatelli leaves the field to a standing ovation. He has, we’re told, never scored two goals in a senior competitive game before. Matteo Pessina comes on, while Brian Cristante replaces Barella.
86 mins: Locatelli is now down, apparently with cramp.
84 mins: Now Switzerland bring Djibril Sow on for Remo Freuler.
83 mins: Switzerland swing in a decent cross from the right, but nobody is there to challenge Donnarumma for it. “Greece can match Portugal as coming closest to winning the Euros one year (2004) and Eurovision the next year (2005),” counters Kristian Ulrichsen. “The Greeks can in fact go one better, as their men’s team won the European Championship in basketball in 2005 as well.”
80 mins: “This Italy side seems shaky to me, defensively,” sniffs Kari Tulinius. “Both Switzerland and Turkey, during their rare attacks, managed to pull them out of shape, without having the quality to score. I wonder how Bale and Ramsey will fare against them.” It is true that the difficult question Italy haven’t yet answered is what will happen when someone starts asking difficult questions, but you can only beat what’s put in front of you, innit?
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79 mins: Nico Barella is on the floor in apparent agony, and Breel Embolo is booked for putting him there. Having seen the replays, I cannot for an instant believe that the amount of agony Barella appears to be in has any relation to the amount of discomfort he is actually experiencing.
76 mins: Chiesa tears at the heart of the Swiss defence before laying off to Immobile, who shoots across goal and wide from a difficult angle. And Switerland bring Ruben Vargas on for Shaqiri.
72 mins: The Swiss have an attack, which ends with Shaqiri taking a nice touch to flick the ball onto his left foot and his shot being charged down. Once the ball spins behind the linesman raises his flag, because someone had been offside at the very start of the move, about 10 minutes earlier.
71 mins: Italy have been attacking occasionally, rather than relentlessly, for the last 15 minutes or so. Do we get some kind of refund?
69 mins: A double change for Italy, who freshen up their forward line by bringing off Insigne and Berardi and bringing on Federico Chiesa and Rafael Toloi.
65 mins: And Italy run down the other end and have a shot of their own, but Berardi’s effort goes over the bar.
64 mins: Switzerland have a chance to score! It falls to Zuber, from an acute angle out on the left corner of the six-yard box sidefoots straight at the keeper.
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61 mins: Shaqiri has a wee dribble and shoots well over the bar from the edge of the area. “With how good Italy seem to be, I have just found out that should they win they’d be the first country to ever win the Eurovision and European championship double in a single year,” notes Kerryyyyyy. “The closest had been Portugal, who won the Euros on 2016 and Eurovision in 2017.”
57 mins: Two more changes for the Swiss, who bring Zuber and Widmer on for Schar and Mbabu.
54 mins: My son has just wondered in and asked who this Locatelli character is. If you find yourself in a similar spot:
GOAL! Italy 2-0 Switzerland (Locatelli, 52 mins)
Locatelli has speared one into the corner from the edge of the D! The keeper doesn’t even move!
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48 mins: These are Switzerland’s best minutes of the match. They have spent a bit of time in the final third, and won both a corner and, wait for it, a throw-in.
46 mins: For the second time, Switzerland win a promising set piece within 30 seconds of kick-off. This time the corner is headed wide.
46 mins: Peeeeep! The second half starts, and Switzerland have brought Mario Gavranovic on at the break, replacing Seferovic.
“After 1.5 matches played, I wonder, is this team truly Italian?” wonders Anis Aslaam. “Whatever happened to the great Italian tradition of starting a tournament notoriously slow and showing the best for the knockout stages?” One of many imperfect Italian traditions that this team appears to have jettisoned.
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“This is like watching early Wenger era Arsenal,” writes Tom Atkins. “A grizzled, no-nonsense defence unleashing an attack that comes at you at speed from all angles. Drink it in now Italy fans, you’ve got 10 years until Emmanuel Frimpong turns up.”
Half time: Italy 1-0 Switzerland
45+2 mins: The half-time whistle sounds, and Italy deservedly lead at the break.
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45+1 mins: There will be about two minutes of stoppage time.
45 mins: Embolo runs down the right, taking on Acerbi, who has a fist full of Swiss shirt as he does so. It looks an certain foul, perhaps even a penalty, until we see a replay from the other side, from where it’s clear that Embolo also has a fist full of Italian shirt. So just play on, then.
43 mins: I’m not sure I’d call this a full-blown lull, but perhaps a collective isn’t-it-half-time soon micropause.
39 mins: Italy are, as they do these days, still attacking. “Italian cuisine-Sublime. Italian opera - brings tears to your eyes. Italian politics-so absurd it provides endless entertainment and tears at the same time. Finally their football is reaching those heights!” trills Mary Waltz.
37 mins: Now Spinazzola runs into the area, takes on Schar, who isn’t remotely interested in actually challenging, and eventually tries to catch the keeper off guard with an unexpected toe-poke, which rumbles wide.
36 mins: Switzerland win a corner, which is a bad idea: Italy win the header and break, Barella runs the ball 70 yards downfield before passing to Berardi, and his shot from 23 yards hits a defender.
34 mins: Immobile surges into the Swiss penalty area, but takes a heavy touch and Sommer comes out to dive at his feet and palm the ball away - straight to Insigne, who tries to chip it over a crowded penalty area and in at the far post. A nice idea, but it was going wide even before Akanji headed it clear.
31 mins: At no stage in this match have Switzerland looked remotely like potentially scoring.
27 mins: That’s an excellent attack, which starts with a fabulous, first-time, half-volleyed long pass out to the right from Locatelli, and Berardi skips down the wing, cuts into the penalty area, and pulls back from the byline to the edge of the six-yard box, where Locatelli is arriving at speed to tap in!
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GOAL! Italy 1-0 Switzerland (Locatelli, 26 mins)
Disallow that!
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24 mins: Chiellini’s day has taken a significant turn for the worse: he’s now indicated that his hamstring is hurting, and Francesco Acerbi comes on to replace him. Meanwhile, here’s the relevant bit of the latest IFAB guidance on handballs:
It is a handball offence, if a player scores in the opponents’ goal:
- directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper; or
- immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental.
No goal! Still Italy 0-0 Switzerland!
20 mins: Chiellini’s arms are resting on Akanji’s shoulders as both go up for the corner, and the ball lands on top of them before plopping earthwards. I don’t think he was exerting any particular force on Akanji, and he certainly didn’t intend to handball it, but the ball hits both his arms and the goal will not stand.
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20 mins: VAR is checking this for potential handball.
GOAL! Italy 1-0 Switzerland (Chiellini, 19 mins)
It’s in the sacchetto di cipolla! It’s a good delivery, which hits a mixture of Chiellini, Xhaka and Akanji and drops conveniently for the Italian, who pops it in from five yards!
18 mins: This game is being played at a terrific tempo. There is constantly something happening - specifically, as I type, an Italy corner.
16 mins: Insigne lifts a shot well high, and probably also wide, of goal from 20 yards.
13 mins: Italy are still pushing, and Switzerland have 10 men within 25 yards of their goalline. Finally Mbabu challenges Spinazzola, and the ball runs behind off the Italian.
12 mins: Penalty claim! Italy are pushing, and Insigne goes over Elvedi’s leg inside the penalty area, but the referee tells him to get up.
10 mins: Effort on goal! Spinazzola is the source, ripping past Elvedi on the left and crossing to Immobile, who heads high.
8 mins: It’s been a busy day for Gianluigi Donnarumma, who has agreed to trouser some petrodollars:
5 mins: Some comedy attempting-to-play-out-from-the-back by the Swiss: from the edge of his area Akanji plays up to Rodriguez on the left, who touches inside to Xhaka, who, under pressure, plays back to Akanji on the edge of his area, who plays up to Rodriguez on the left, who touches inside to Xhaka, who, under pressure, plays back to Akanji on the edge of his area, who plays up to Rodriguez on the left, who ... well, you can guess. After repeating the same thing three or four times, they finally give the ball away.
3 mins: Berardi is sent scurrying clear down Italy’s right. He cuts inside and just keeps on cutting, until Xhaka appears from midfield and dispossesses him.
1 min: Switzerland take the kick-off and pump it down the right, where Kevin Mbabu goes down under a pretty gentle Spinazzola challenge. The free-kick is headed away from the edge of the area.
1 min: Action!
Right then. Preambles complete, very nearly time for action.
The teams are out, and Italy are singing their particularly good anthem.
“I honestly feel like Italy might crash and burn in the latter stages,” says Nigel Nganina. “They are being hyped up after a win over a sorry Turkish side, with a relatively easy group. I look forward to being proven utterly wrong though.”
You may of course be right, but I’m excited by their potential. A is one of the groups that it’s probably better not to win, but I certainly expect them to reach the no-disgrace-to-lose-to-them stage of the tournament, and quite possibly the frankly-I-didn’t-think-they’d-get-this-far stage.
With Wales winning against an again rubbish Turkey this afternoon, Italy know they will be guaranteed a place in the knockout rounds if they win either of their remaining games or draw both. Here’s a report on that one:
A glimpse inside the Italy dressing room at the Stadio Olimpico. It looks a little pokey, no?
That’s no changes for the Swiss and just the one for Italy, for whom Di Lorenzo replaces Florenzi.
The teams!
The teams are in, and look like this:
Italy: Donnarumma, Di Lorenzo, Bonucci, Chiellini, Spinazzola, Barella, Jorginho, Locatelli, Berardi, Immobile, Insigne. Subs: Sirigu, Belotti, Pessina, Emerson Palmieri, Chiesa, Acerbi, Cristante, Bernardeschi, Raspadori, Bastoni, Toloi, Meret.
Switzerland: Sommer, Elvedi, Schar, Akanji, Mbabu, Freuler, Xhaka, Rodriguez, Shaqiri, Seferovic, Embolo. Subs: Widmer, Zakaria, Vargas, Mvogo, Zuber, Sow, Fassnacht, Benito, Mehmedi, Gavranovic, Kobel, Comert.
Referee: Sergei Karasev (Russia).
Hello world!
Not many teams in this tournament have been more impressive than Italy, albeit against a Turkish team which as I type could have shipped a few to Wales in the first 20 minutes. They were, the world concluded last Friday night, extremely impressive.
And it certainly wasn’t a one-off: in Italy’s last 13 games they have conceded a cumulative total of one goal. One! They come into this one on the back of nine consecutive clean sheets. And how many 1-0 wins have they had in that time? One, the first of the 13, against the Netherlands in Amsterdam. Since then they have had a goalless draw, a 1-1 (the Dutch again), five 2-0 wins, a 3-0, a 4-0 and a 6-0.
It is a terrific record, and after their impressive showing against Turkey they go into this one as fourth favourites for the title. “We will have to win the next one and if possible also the next one. We have to do our best,” says Roberto Mancini. “I am confident. This is an excellent team that can only improve. If the English bookmakers say [Italy are favourites], we accept it because they get it right, but the championship is still long. We have much work to do. Switzerland has always put Italy in difficulty.”
As for Vladimir Petkovic, the Switzerland coach, he reckons his side can win, so long as they are “better than we actually are”. Which is easier said than done.
“We will respect Italy, but not too much,” he says. “They are the big favourites, not only in our group, but in general in this tournament. We all saw the quality they showed against Turkey. But we have quality too and can surprise them. We will need to be better than we actually are, we will have to have a great effort, run a lot and be great in duels. Then we can win. We need to play our own game and be dangerous in the final third. We must guard against certain Italian moves, but also be true to ourselves.”
I for one think we should all strive to be better than we actually are. Welcome!
