Facing Croatia, which had not tasted victory in the first two games, the Italian team, which had made tactical changes, still performed disappointingly. Substitute scorer Zaccagni has become Italy's new hero, but Italy should be more grateful to Donnarumma. Calafiori, who was lying on the lawn and crying bitterly after the game, was finally relieved: he set himself up as a thousand fingers against Spain in the last round, and this stoppage-time equalizing assist can finally relieve the burden. But the most watched "post-00" main force of the Italian team in this European Cup also paid a huge price: he missed the 1/8 final match against Switzerland due to the accumulation of yellow cards, and the attack and defense of the Italian team will be a heavy loss.
The newspaper La Sport lamented that post-Mancini Italy had been struggling for a convincing victory, only to find that it had been met with even greater disappointment. In the face of the catastrophic result of the defending champions' group stage exit, Spalletti was forced to make changes. From Petraca, a romantic poet who tried to please the masses, to Machiavelli, who would do anything to achieve results. Spalletti made his decision the afternoon before the final: less beautiful, more practical. Italy switched from 433 to 352, with strikers Retegui and Raspadori replacing Scamacca and Chiesa Jr., Frattesi replaced by veteran Dalmian, who partnered Bastoni and Calafiori, and Di Lorenzo and Dimarco trying to squeeze Croatia down the flanks.
But with such a realistic Italian team, the performance is still unsatisfactory. There were six shots on goal in the first half, but there was little real threat. Spalletti replaced Manuel Pellegrini at half-time and strengthened the midfield with Frattesi. I didn't expect it to be Frattesi who inadvertently handballed the penalty 10 minutes later, but thankfully Donnarumma continued his best form since the start of the game and saved Modric's penalty.
The Paris goalkeeper will become the first Italian goalkeeper to save a penalty in regulation time at Euro 2008 since Gianluigi Buffon, who saved Mutu's penalty at Euro 2008. If you count the penalty shoot-outs, Donnarumma has saved four of his last seven penalty shoot-outs at the European Championships, conceded just two, and one goal was shot by a penalty taker.
It's just that you can't always expect the goalkeeper to save the team. One minute later, Donnarumma had tried his best to save Budimir's shot, but it was still Modric's follow-up shot that broke through the 10-finger mark. The poor performance of the back line has attracted the roar of the Paris goalkeeper, and the Italian team, which has always been good at defending in the three games of the group stage, must concede goals in every game, and the defense is really difficult to hope for.
After conceding the goal, Sparaati replaced Chiesa Jr., Scamacca, Fagioli and Zaccagni in succession, and it was already a desperate situation. Thankfully, the goddess of fate was on the side of the defending champions: Zaccagni's equaliser in 97 minutes and 19 seconds was Italy's latest goal in regulation time in the history of the European Championship and the Lazio winger's maiden goal for the national team.
The Croatian complained about the eight-minute stoppage time, while the Italian was ecstatic about Piero's extra-time goal against Germany in the 2006 World Cup semi-final. Zaccagni said Piero was his idol, and the two had a good relationship, having met before the European Championships. It may have been Piero's good fortune to send Italy out of the group stage with a tiebreaker to avoid the nightmare of Denmark (1996), Germany (2000) and Greece (2008).
Italy qualified on thin ice, and after the game, Spalletti directly replied to the Sky Sports pundit's questions about his conservative tactics: "If we always make low-level mistakes, we struggle in any tactical system. Apparently he was referring to Calafiori's own goal from the last round and the penalty for the handball that Frattesi could have avoided. Spalletti praised the team's performance in the final moments against Croatia's onslaught, especially the almost impeccable back three.
Italy's sluggish attack continued, and Spalletti was helpless: "We didn't play well in the first half, and if we didn't create many chances, we couldn't have scored. ”
Spalletti also explained that the half-time substitution was to make the most of the gaps on the wings, but it backfired. He denied that the team's poor performance for most of the time had anything to do with the 352 formation, instead believing that the attitude and performance of the players was the key, and that tactics were not the main issue. Spalletti singled out Jorginho, Barella and Calafiori, but in the quarter-finals he will lose the best young defender in the group stage.
Italy, who finished second in Group B, will face Switzerland, who are second in Group A, in the quarter-finals, who are the arch-rivals who squeezed Italy into the play-offs in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
Jorginho's two penalties were saved by the Swiss goalkeeper, which led to Italy's eventual exclusion from the World Cup in Qatar. This time, the main players of the Swiss team, Ndoye, Ebischer and Freuler, are all from Bologna in Serie A, plus the psychologically advantageous Inter goalkeeper Zormer, Torino defender Rodriguez and Milan striker Okafor who did not play in the group stage, the Swiss team has as many as 6 Serie A players, wingback Widmer, midfielders Denis Zakaria and Shaqiri and other players who have had Serie A resumes, Spalletti's real test is still to come.