Italy Make More History With 33 Games Unbeaten to Reach the Euro 2020 Final

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In what was an instant classic, Spain and Italy met in the semi-finals of Euro 2020 at Wembley in a tense, close and famous affair as the Italians reigned supreme on penalties.

Spain started the game off significantly better than Roberto Mancini’s men, who were chasing a 33rd game unbeaten under his leadership.

The Spanish would see most of the chances in the first half, with Dani Olmo of RB Leipzig pulling the strings alongside Pedri.

With no recognised striker on the pitch, the forward duties were left up to Olmo, Mikel Oyarzabal and Ferran Torres, and it was Oyarzabal who found most of Spain’s chances initially.

However, more great work in goal from Gianluigi Donnarumma and poor efforts from the forward kept it at 0-0.

Italy had one or two chances of their own in the first 45, but Ciro Immobile ran offside a few times and a resilient Spanish defence kept the Italians at bay.

In the second half, not much changed in terms of the way the game was going, as Spain continued to dominate the ball with the odd chance for Italy.

However, as time went on, Sergio Busquets began to have the ball picked from his feet and Mancini’s men started to tick.

In the 60th minute, Federico Chiesa scored his second goal of the tournament with another smartly taken goal.

The ball was gifted to the Juventus man thanks to a wonderful counter attack from Italy, and Chiesa cut inside to curl the ball past a helpless Unai Simon.

Spain continued to press and remained with most of the ball at their feet and soon entered Alvaro Morata, who has had a topsy-turvy European Championship.

However, the striker was almost immediately involved when he got on the end of a well-worked Spain move to make it 1-1 in the 80th minute.

The game remained level and went to penalties. Both Manuel Locatelli for Italy and Olmo for Spain missed the first penalties for their countries.

Andrea Belotti stepped up next and executed a fine strike into the bottom right of Simon’s goal.

Gerard Moreno stepped up and scored for Spain next and Leonardo Bonucci also scored for Italy, before Thiago cooly made it 2-2.

Federico Bernardeschi made it 3-2 before Morata was denied once again and therefore gave Jorginho the chance to win it.

The Chelsea man did his usual hop, skip and a jump to confuse Simon and calmly slot home as Italy made it to their first major tournament final in nine years where they’ll play either England or Denmark.