Twenty-seven seconds into the second half, Switzerland went 2-0 up towards Italy of their final 16 conflict in Berlin.
However, hold on, didn’t Italy take kick-off?
Sure, they did — and so they made an entire mess of it.
Luciano Spalletti’s crew began the second half with two players by the ball (the striker Gianluca Scamacca and midfielder Nicolo Fagioli), six gamers lined up alongside on the midway line (three on the correct and three on the left) and two gamers simply deeper than the centre circle (the centre-backs Gianluca Mancini and Alessandro Bastoni).
The ball was performed again by Fagioli to one of many centre-backs, Mancini, and the three gamers on the correct pushed ahead, whereas the three on the left seemed, at greatest, a bit of misplaced.
The great old style hoof up the pitch has been in vogue at Euro 2024, as analysed in nice element by The Athletic’s Jordan Campbell final week, and it appeared like we have been about to see the newest instance.
Mancini took a contact and handed it straight again to Fagioli, who had arguably been Italy’s greatest performer within the opening 45 minutes, on his first begin on the Euros. However his day was about to go downhill.
Fagioli turned and whipped a dreadful, and pretty blind, move ahead — within the free course of the overloaded right-hand aspect — that was simply picked off by Granit Xhaka. The midfielder was sensible once more at the moment, as he has been all event for Switzerland, and all season for Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
Switzerland have been attacking with six gamers however Italy nonetheless had respectable numbers again, and may have felt snug coping with the risk. There have been 4 Italy gamers between Breel Embolo, Switzerland’s most superior player, and Donnarumma within the Italy purpose.
However all the pieces from this level from Italy was passive within the excessive.
Xhaka slipped the ball huge to Ruben Vargas on the left, who pushed ahead after which performed a move in direction of the overlapping Michel Aebischer exterior him. It wasn’t a terrific move, and Aebischer needed to run previous the ball earlier than taking it on his proper foot.
He teed it again to Vargas, who performed it inside to Xhaka.
The previous Arsenal midfielder performed it again exterior to Aebischer, who then discovered Vargas with a neat move.
Switzerland weren’t even doing something notably intelligent at this level, however Italy challenges have been nowhere to be seen.
Vargas, who had drifted unnoticed in direction of the sting of the Italy field, took one contact and curled a chic end previous Donnarumma and into the far nook of the online.
There have been at the very least 44 minutes and 33 seconds of play left within the match however with that it was 2-0, and successfully recreation over.
After an abject first half, Italy wanted to begin shortly after half-time. As a substitute, they did the other, committing an egregious act of self-sabotage and permitting Switzerland to take management of the sport.
Murat Yakin’s aspect outclassed the reigning champions and have been absolutely deserving of what in actuality was a really snug win.
Subsequent up for them is a quarter-final towards the winners of Sunday’s match between England and Slovakia.
