Half-time was over when Luciano Spalletti sent his trump card out of the field. Mattia Zaccagni got ready. The man who had shot Italy into this round of 16 against Switzerland with his goal against Croatia in the very last second. Even then, the current European champions were on the verge of elimination. Against Switzerland, Zaccagni was supposed to start another comeback, but moments like the one against the Croatians cannot be repeated indefinitely. Zaccagni had been in the game for 32 seconds when he had to watch as Ruben Vargas sank the ball into the top corner with a magnificent shot. From then on, the mission was challenging to say the least. Too challenging, as it turned out. Italy were eliminated after a 2-0 defeat to Switzerland. Without resistance. Without luck. Without passion.
“We lacked the rhythm and freshness that make the difference. We are not in a position to show more than that at the moment,” admitted Italy coach Spalletti after the poor performance. Yes, this version of the Squadra Azzurra of 2024 lacked pretty much everything that made their predecessors European champions in 2021. The early exit is the logical consequence. Just the start of the tournament. An embarrassment: after 23 seconds, the underdog Albania was leading; it was the fastest goal in the history of the European Championship. Italy pulled themselves together and won 2-1, but the deficits were obvious. This was then highlighted by a furious Spain, who should have won by a much higher score than 1-0. In the last group game against Croatia, Zaccagni saved the almost defeated European champions. It was just a life-sustaining measure. With no prospect of long-term success, as the round of 16 would show.
Pure joy: Switzerland is in the quarter-finals after a 2-0 win against defending champions Italy.AP
This early end is well deserved for the defending champions, and not just because of the poor preliminary round. Switzerland was superior in every respect in the first half. The pressing in particular was excellently organised, all the cogs meshed together. “We were very brave, had a very good distribution and a lot of energy. Basically everything you need for a good football game,” said goalkeeper Yann Sommer. In the quarter-finals they will face either England or Slovakia, and the Swiss will definitely not be without a chance.
“We put in another great performance and deserved to advance,” said defensive leader Manuel Akanji. And midfielder Fabien Rieder explained: “We put in an incredible performance as a team. Everyone ran for each other. The mechanisms were great, we worked well together, both defensively and offensively. Now we want to enjoy the victory, but we won’t get euphoric.”
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The performance in the round of 16 only confirmed the good performance of the Swiss in the preliminary round. Italy hardly found any means of resolving, they just reacted, and mostly too slowly. The Italians were pushed back deep into their own half. The only thing that really prevented them from falling behind was goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who saved against Breel Embolo. The Italians did not manage a single shot on goal before half-time. On the other hand, the one-goal deficit was still acceptable. Remo Freuler had put Switzerland in the lead after 37 minutes. A player who plays for FC Bologna. His goal reflected the entire course of the game up to that point. Ruben Vargas, who plays for Augsburg in the Bundesliga, brought the ball flat into the penalty area, right into the path of Freuler, who had set off on a so-called deep run. Freuler skillfully took the ball and shot it into the near corner. Exactly where Donnarumma did not expect it.
It was the Italian goalkeeper who prevented anything worse from happening. “It hurts to be eliminated like this. We deserved to be eliminated and the way we did it is difficult to come to terms with. Everything was missing today, the quality, the courage,” said the 25-year-old, adding dejectedly: “We can only apologize to our fans. That is unacceptable, we were bad the whole game. That is the reality, we have to accept it.” Italy’s players showed no deep runs, just as they showed nothing else. After the 0-2 defeat, elimination seemed inevitable.
Wants to talk about his future as national coach: Luciano SpallettiReuters
It is quite possible that the momentum of the game would have been shaken if Fabian Schär had experienced what had happened to seven others before him. He tried to clear a ball that had been brought high into the penalty area with his head, but the direction of his attempt was completely wrong. The ball hit the post. The tournament almost had an own goal.
The post saved Switzerland once again when Gianluca Scamacca tried, but Italy was denied a goal. Nothing seemed to work. Not on this day. Not in this stadium. In Berlin, where Italy had been crowned world champions in 2006, at the last tournament in Germany, the European Championship ended in a disappointing way. Coach Spalletti immediately announced that he would be speaking to association president Gabriele Gravina about his future: “The responsibility always lies with the coach, I made the decisions.”
