Double for Ferran Torres and red for Bonucci, Pellegrini is not enough. Mancini’s team fell after 37 games on Thursday France-Belgium and the two finals on Sunday
In a night to forget, pride saves us and the last few minutes of chest out with one less man. Italy surrenders to Spain that in a time, the first, consumes the revenge of the European. A wrong game in a wrong climate. People Donnarumma whistles every time he touches the ball, forgetting that if we raised the Cup to the sky we owe it also and perhaps above all to our goalkeeper, the best player of the tournament. Mancini, on the other hand, makes a sin of presumption by choosing to challenge the queen of the dribble on his own ground, giving up a real striker and playing, just like Luis Henrique, with the false nine. The result is a defeat that hurts. Better now than at Wembley, for heaven’s sake. But we hoped that, after the uncertainties of September, the enchantment would continue and that, after the magical Roman and Wembley nights, the Milanese ones would arrive.
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not cos. La Roja in trouble in the first ten minutes, asphyxiated by the pressing blue, but then takes the field and with personality shakes off the Azzurri, who stretch and fray and are less of a team than many other times. Luis Enrique’s reds punish us with two photocopied goals in the space of half an hour: always crosses Oyarzabal from the left and Ferran Torres scores, first of foot and then of head.
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Our opponents hurt us without seven players and with four different men compared to London, also with Gavi, 17 years and two months, the youngest rookie in the history of the Spanish national team, on the field from the first minute and then with another rookie, the nineteen-year-old Pino, who entered the second half just started due to his injury at Ferran Torres, the hombre of the partido.
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Italy interrupts its beautiful cycle of 37 games without defeat in the stadium where in November 2017 he cried bitter tears after the cursed World Cup play-off with Sweden. That moment was dramatic, this does not erase thereenterprise of July, but it brings us back to earth and imposes a series of reflections in view of the World Cup in Qatar, which we still have to conquer and which will be played in less than fourteen months.
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The attack is an unsolved problem. The starting Tridentino with Bernardeschi false nine, flanked by Chiesa and Insigne, it doesn’t work and Mancini redraws it in the middle of the first half with the Neapolitan in the heart of the attack. Errors and a pinch of bad luck also weigh on the unfortunate first half: between the two Spanish goals, Bernardeschi hits a post and Insigne devours the 1-1, wasting a penalty in motion propitiated by the cross of Church, one of the most responsive. To complete the disaster, the naive expulsion of Bonucci who, already cautioned for protests, jumping testa spreads his arm and remedies the second card yellow five minutes before the doubling of Luis Enrique’s band.
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In the second half, Mancio immediately brought in Chiellini, who at the start had remained on the bench in favor of Bastoni in anticipation of the match against Lukaku or Benzema. The captain gives solidity to the bewildered defense. a different Italy suffers, risks taking the third goal, but wants to remain attached to the game.
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Chiesa hits a post offside and, taking advantage of Pino’s error, with an amazing restart offers Pellegrini, one of the changes, the convenient ball to reopen the game. too late to fix it, not to save face. The determination of Vialli on the bench and the reaction with the man less are the fuel to go in Turin to play the final for the third place of the Nations League and above all to win the pass for the 2022 World Cup.
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Spain returns to Milan on Sunday evening for the final against France or Belgium: per Luis Enrique, in the crosshairs of critics, a rematch within a rematch.
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October 6, 2021 (change October 6, 2021 | 23:36)
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