Italy beat Spain to end era

We have a great deal of respect for Spain: they are one of the best teams in the world and among the favourites to win UEFA EURO 2016.

Spain, with Lucas Vazquez on in place of the ineffective Morata, continued to pile forward at every opportunity and Andres Iniesta unleashed a wonderful left-footed volley which Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon palmed over the crossbar.

The incoming Chelsea boss said: “We have great respect for Spain”.

“The most important thing is we are true to ourselves”.

“We hardly changed anything in between those two matches, although coaches do obviously have to have a bit of flexibility so they can make changes at any given moment”. The paucity of Spain’s options was evident from their substitutions: the familiar Pedro, the 35-year-old veteran Aritz Aduriz and Lucas Vazquez, who has played only sporadically for Real Madrid this season.

Their opponents in the quarter-finals will be the victor of the pre-quarterfinal clash between Spain and 2012 runners-up Italy, who knocked out Joachim Low’s side en route to that final four years ago.

The result spells the end of Spain’s dominance in European football.

Spain entered Monday’s game surrounded by doubts after losing 2-1 to Croatia in its final group game, and again it wasn’t able to impose the passing game that’s been behind its recent success. We are without Thiago Motta and that’s a big blow, also because De Rossi took a knock to his hip.

“We waited too long before killing the game off, too”.

Spain will now have to focus on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russian Federation, although it’s unclear what the Spanish squad will look like after the elimination in France.

My prediction for this game is an Italy win.

“We prepared for this game in the tiniest details throughout the week and the Coach gave us the right indications to beat what I think is one of the best teams in the world”, Giaccherini told Sky Sport Italia.

“We have proved that Italy is not just catenaccio”, Conte added, using the Italian word to describe the team’s traditional, defensive-minded playing style. “We will try to attack as well as we can”. Gianluca Vialli scored the game’s only goal in the 73rd minute as Italy ran out 1-0 victors, before progressing to the semi-finals where they lost 2-0 to the USSR.

The balance of talent undoubtedly sits with Spain, yet Italy showed that even with one of their weakest sides in more than a generation, they simply can not be written off.

Italy, beaten 4-0 by the Spanish in the final four years ago, produced a fine performance to set up a quarterfinal tie with world champion Germany.