How Italy won Euro 2020: Magical Spinazzola, shootout prowess and the shadow of Covid (2024)

This is the final part in our series about the 16 triumphant teams in the European Championship, before the 17th edition kicks off in Germany next month.

We’ve looked atthe Soviet Union in 1960,Spain in 1964,Italy in 1968,West Germany in 1972,Czechoslovakia in 1976,West Germany again in 1980,France in 1984,the Netherlands in 1988,Denmark in 1992,Germany in 1996,France in 2000,Greece in 2004,Spain in 2008, Spain again in 2012 and Portugal in 2016.

Here’s the last instalment — Italy winning a tournament officially still called Euro 2020, after its originally scheduled slot four years on from the previous edition, but played 12 months later.

Introduction

COVID-19 meant we had to wait an extra year for the most recent European Championship, which was played in cities all across the continent to mark the 60th anniversary of its first edition rather than having one or two host countries, in summer 2021, in front of half-full stadia — and those crowds generally featured very few supporters of the two competing nations because of travel restrictions related to the global pandemic.

Italy’s failure to qualify for World Cup 2018 came as a serious shock — and they followed that setback by failing to qualify for World Cup 2022 as well. So it’s peculiar that, between those two embarrassments, they somehow managed to win the Euros for the first time since a somewhat unconvincing success on home soil in 1968.

The manager

An elegant forward in his day, Roberto Mancini offered great coaching experience and several honours, from winning the Coppa Italia with Fiorentina just a few months into his managerial career, to league titles with both Inter Milan (three) and Manchester City. Stints in charge of Turkey’s Galatasaray and Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia were less memorable, but Mancini seemed like an obvious choice when selected as national-team coach in summer 2018.

Mancini had a reputation for being overly defensive, but that probably suited both Italy and the nature of knockout tournaments. He appointed his old Sampdoria strike partner Gianluca Vialli as Italy’s delegation chief in 2019, and the latter played a prominent role in Italy’s eventual Euros celebrations at Wembley. Sadly, Vialli only had another 18 months to live.

Mancini always had a fondness for English football, surprisingly extending his career to play four games for Leicester City on loan in 2001, and often spoke of England as the birthplace of the game. Having won the FA Cup at Wembley in 2011 while in charge of Manchester City, a decade later, he won the European Championship there too.

Tactics

By this stage, top-level club football had shifted towards the use of a front five when in possession, often with two holding midfielders and three defenders. At this tournament though, Italy and Spain were the only sides who played in that manner.

Italy’s approach was very interesting.

From a base 4-3-3 formation, the outstanding Leonardo Spinazzola would push forward aggressively from left-back to become the left-sided attacker in their front five, which allowed Lorenzo Insigne to move inside.

Things were different on the other flank. Nicolo Barella played a box-to-box role, pushing into the channel and leaving the width to the wide forward, either Domenico Berardi or Federico Chiesa. Behind them, the understated Giovanni Di Lorenzo would tuck inside from right-back.

This all worked excellently, down to Giorgio Chiellini being a left-footed centre-back comfortable in a three, and Leonardo Bonucci hitting Andrea Pirlo-esque diagonals. In midfield, Jorginho and Marco Verratti could command possession.

The best example of this system was the 2-1 defeat of Belgium in the quarter-finals, when Italy blew away their opponents in the first half. The two players positioned in the channels scored goals typical of their style: Barella bursting into the box then belting the ball home, Insigne cutting inside and curling in his trademark finish from the inside-left position.

Really, the only thing lacking was a top-class centre-forward.

Ciro Immobile’s domestic goalscoring record is excellent but he was found wanting in the knockout phase, to the extent that when Italy were chasing the game against a parked England defence in the final, Mancini substituted him just nine minutes into the second half, brought on winger Berardi and played without a proper centre-forward.

Key player

Let’s split this into two parts.

For their first five matches, Italy’s outstanding operator was Spinazzola, a relatively unheralded Roma full-back whose energy both made the system work and created many of their best attacking moments. A little like countrymen Gianluca Zambrotta and Paolo Maldini, he made the left-back slot work despite the fact he was naturally right-footed. He was excellent as Italy breezed past Turkey and Switzerland 3-0 in their opening two group games.

But the Achilles injury he suffered against Belgium (he didn’t play again for 10 months) meant Italy were forced to cope with the more sluggish Emerson Palmieri in the semi-final and final.

That meant their key player was goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who made decisive penalty saves in both those ties, and was named player of the tournament. Not always convincing on crosses, and somewhat uncomfortable with the ball at his feet, Donnarumma was nevertheless excellent at keeping it out of his net.

Bonucci, Chiellini, Jorginho, Verratti and Chiesa — even though he was primarily used from the bench — all had excellent tournaments too.

You might be surprised to learn…

This was the first international tournament where managers were allowed to name a 26-strong squad, rather than the previous 23. This was originally because of the lingering danger of COVID-19, and the worry that some players would be affected in terms of contracting the virus, or coming into contact with those who had, and being forced to isolate, so missing a game. Like the introduction of being able to use five substitutes, it has since become the norm.

And Mancini went out of his way to give minutes to almost everyone — he fielded no fewer than 25 players, an impressive achievement helped by the fact Italy won their first two group games, allowing him to rotate heavily for the final one against Wales, a 1-0 victory. Salvatori Sirigu replaced Donnarumma two minutes from the end of that match, which left third-choice goalkeeper Alex Meret as the only member of the squad who didn’t see any action.

The final

England manager Gareth Southgate had switched between a back four and a five throughout the tournament.

Worried that Italy’s front five would overload a four-man defence, he went for the more cautious latter option. Within two minutes of the match kicking off, the two wing-backs in that system pushed forward and combined for the opening goal, with Luke Shaw crashing home Kieran Trippier’s deep cross.

Italy looked rattled and struggled to play their way into the game, but England failed to capitalise and went too defensive too quickly.

The main feature of the final, particularly in the second half, was Italy having lots of possession but looking unable to break down England’s packed defence, but then England simply hoofing the ball clear rather than looking to retain it and relieve pressure, or trying to launch counter-attacks against Italy’s ageing defence.

One notable exception came when Bukayo Saka broke down the right and got dragged to the floor, by his shirt, by Chiellini.

Italy’s equaliser, through Bonucci, was a scrappy goal from a corner.

They had the better of the game thereafter, without ever really looking dominant.

In all, it was a tame and overly cautious final, overshadowed by crowd trouble beforehand which created a tense atmosphere inside Wembley.

The decisive moment

Italy had an unhappy record at penalty shootouts coming into this one — they’d lost at the World Cups of 1990, 1994 and 1998 on spot kicks, as well as in the European Championships of 1980, 2008 and 2016. But in the Euro 2020 final, they were up against a nation even worse at them.

Italy only scored three of their five, and seemed to have missed their chance to win it when Jorginho, who had scored the decisive penalty in the semi-final against Spain, produced his usual hopping approach to the ball and Jordan Pickford saved.

But England only scored two of their five, failing with the final three. After Marcus Rashford had stuttered his run-up and struck the post (with the ’keeper diving the other way) and Jadon Sancho’s poor effort was saved, Saka placed a tame shot at a comfortable height for Donnarumma, who was suddenly the star of the tournament.

Were they definitely the best team?

A funny one, this. Italy came into the tournament on a 27-match unbeaten run, which they would eventually stretch to 37 later in 2021. They had the most cohesive system at the tournament, the best goalkeeper, the most solid defence and the most technical midfield. Oh, and they kicked things off with that thumping opening-match victory over Turkey in Rome, setting their stall out from the outset.

But ultimately, they needed extra time to squeeze past an average Austria side in the round of 16, and subsequently needed penalties to defeat both Spain in the semi-final and England in the final. In fact, it meant that an entire ‘branch’ of the knockout stage was decided on penalties, as Spain had beaten Switzerland in a shootout in their quarter-final, and in turn the Swiss had eliminated world champions France in the previous round.

Shootouts are part and parcel of the game, of course, probably more so than ever. But one win in 90 minutes from their four knockout ties — much like Portugal in 2016 — means it’s difficult to truly know whether Italy were better than Spain, England or even France, but whereas past Italian sides have been considered rather boring, this was a likeable, technical one.

Winning a European Championship between two failures to even qualify for the World Cup seems strange, but then Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004 had done the same thing.

The European Championship, far more than the World Cup, has thrown up some rather unlikely winners.

Will this summer’s edition do the same?

(Top photo: Getty Images)