Italy made a commanding return to major tournament football as they opened Euro 2020 with a comfortable 3-0 win over Turkey at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Azzurri failed to qualify for the 2018\u00a0World Cup but\u00a0have since rebuilt under Roberto Mancini, who appears to have transformed them into a credible force that dealt with one of the competition’s supposed dark horses with relative ease.<\/p>\n
Not that it was all plain sailing, however. Andrea Bocelli’s pre-match rendition of ‘Nessun Dorma’\u00a0\u2013\u00a0or ‘let no one sleep’ in English\u00a0\u2013\u00a0was seemingly not heeded amid a dour first half, though one flashpoint just before the interval saw Italy denied a penalty.<\/p>\n
Mancini’s side eventually opened the scoring soon after half-time as Juventus defender Merih Demiral scored an own goal\u00a0and, given the lack of threat posed by Turkey, subsequent strikes\u00a0from Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne were probably not even necessary.<\/p>\n
Turkey relied on counter-attacks 26 per cent more than the average in qualifying, according to\u00a0Stats Perform’s Playing Styles model, and their\u00a0deep set-up\u00a0contributed to a cagey opening.<\/p>\n
Italy made a commanding return to major tournament football as they opened Euro 2020 with a comfortable 3-0 win over Turkey at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Azzurri failed to qualify for the 2018\u00a0World Cup but\u00a0have since rebuilt under Roberto Mancini, who appears to have transformed them into a credible force that dealt with one of the competition’s supposed dark horses with relative ease.<\/p>\n
Not that it was all plain sailing, however. Andrea Bocelli’s pre-match rendition of ‘Nessun Dorma’\u00a0\u2013\u00a0or ‘let no one sleep’ in English\u00a0\u2013\u00a0was seemingly not heeded amid a dour first half, though one flashpoint just before the interval saw Italy denied a penalty.<\/p>\n
Mancini’s side eventually opened the scoring soon after half-time as Juventus defender Merih Demiral scored an own goal\u00a0and, given the lack of threat posed by Turkey, subsequent strikes\u00a0from Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne were probably not even necessary.<\/p>\n
Turkey relied on counter-attacks 26 per cent more than the average in qualifying, according to\u00a0Stats Perform’s Playing Styles model, and their\u00a0deep set-up\u00a0contributed to a cagey opening.<\/p>\n
But Italy started to probe with greater intent and saw\u00a0Insigne shoot just after a one-two with\u00a0Immobile in the 17th minute, before Giorgio Chiellini \u2013 now the oldest outfielder to ever start a major tournament game for the Azzurri \u2013 drew a stunning save from Ugurcan Cakir with a powerful header.<\/p>\n
Turkey were then arguably fortunate not to concede a penalty just before half-time, VAR deeming there to be no clear error\u00a0when Zeki Celik handled Leonardo Spinazzola’s cross.<\/p>\n
Although Cengiz Under was introduced at the break, Turkey’s gameplan showed no change and Italy deservedly made the breakthrough in the 53rd minute as Domenico Berardi left Umut Meras on his backside and smashed the ball across goal, with Demiral diverting it into his own net.<\/p>\n
Cakir could not hold on to Spinazzola’s shot and Immobile was on hand to coolly tap in the rebound to make in 2-0 just past the hour.<\/p>\n
And Insigne wrapped things up 11 minutes from time, curling home after being teed up by Immobile as the Azzurri netted three times in a single game for the first time in European Championship finals history.<\/p>\n
But Italy started to probe with greater intent and saw\u00a0Insigne shoot just after a one-two with\u00a0Immobile in the 17th minute, before Giorgio Chiellini \u2013 now the oldest outfielder to ever start a major tournament game for the Azzurri \u2013 drew a stunning save from Ugurcan Cakir with a powerful header.<\/p>\n
Turkey were then arguably fortunate not to concede a penalty just before half-time, VAR deeming there to be no clear error\u00a0when Zeki Celik handled Leonardo Spinazzola’s cross.<\/p>\n
Although Cengiz Under was introduced at the break, Turkey’s gameplan showed no change and Italy deservedly made the breakthrough in the 53rd minute as Domenico Berardi left Umut Meras on his backside and smashed the ball across goal, with Demiral diverting it into his own net.<\/p>\n
Cakir could not hold on to Spinazzola’s shot and Immobile was on hand to coolly tap in the rebound to make in 2-0 just past the hour.<\/p>\n
And Insigne wrapped things up 11 minutes from time, curling home after being teed up by Immobile as the Azzurri netted three times in a single game for the first time in European Championship finals history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italy made a commanding return to major tournament football as they opened Euro 2020 with a comfortable 3-0 win over Turkey at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Friday. The Azzurri failed to qualify for the 2018\u00a0World Cup but\u00a0have since rebuilt under Roberto Mancini, who appears to have transformed them into a credible force that dealt with one of the competition’s supposed dark horses with relative ease. Not that it was all plain sailing, however. Andrea Bocelli’s pre-match rendition of ‘Nessun Dorma’\u00a0\u2013\u00a0or ‘let no one sleep’ in English\u00a0\u2013\u00a0was seemingly not heeded amid a dour first half, though one flashpoint just before the interval saw Italy denied a penalty. Mancini’s side … Continue reading “Euro 2020: Italy beat Turkey 3-0 in Tournament Opener”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[774,775],"tags":[783,777,776,782,781,778,779,785,784,21,780],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1617,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/1617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}