Italy

They looked so lame but admittedly North Macedonia made some crucial blocks and denied them any space. Maybe Mancini was too cautious it’s difficult to say but you’d have to say it’s a massive upset considering Italy won the euros albeit on pennas.
 
Miss consecutive World Cups for the first time

Havent played a knockout game in the Finals since the Final of 2006.
 
wilkos_perm said:
They didn't fluke it at all, they were easily the most impressive side in that tournament
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Nah.
Scraped past Austria, Belgium and Spain in succession.

Austria were the better team, as were Spain.

Beat a woeful Turkey, a 10 man Wales and their only particularly impressive result was demolishing Switzerland.

It's not even a partisan thing, I'm quite happy to admit that England didn't do enough to beat them on the night, I just don't think they were overly impressive in the tournament.
 
Morton94 said:
Makes you wonder how on earth we managed to lose to them on our own patch!
Bet our lads are gutted
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They had gone 3 years unbeaten when they beat us. They were in a groove, knew each other, had masses of experience and were on a roll. They actually got lucky reaching the final and their experience told against our young squad. I hoped we would paly Spain because they were a better match up for us.

Anyway, the big difference between Italy that played us and this italy is the CBs are gone, Chiellini and Bonucci played 400+ games together at Juve and about 100 games together for Italy. They gave them the solidity and a platform to get into every game. However Bonucci is lost without his mancrush alongside him.

They had gone 39 games unbeaten until the y lost the Nations League semi vs Spain. They bounced back and beat Belgium in teh 3rd place play off. Their issue is drawing far too many games and usually because they can't score enough.....let's be honest they drew the final 1-1 with us and needed luck on pens. Eventually that luck will run out and it did.
 
BoroMart said:
They actually got lucky reaching the final and their experience told against our young squad. I hoped we would paly Spain because they were a better match up for us.
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They were very lucky to get past Spain in the Semi-Final too. Spain absolutely bossed the game but couldn't score a winner that they really deserved.
 
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