Italy vs Spain Match Preview

Italy has been one of most in-shape teams in this European Championship and they are one game away from reaching the final. After finishing first in their group, where they dominated winning all three games and keeping a clean sheet, they had to face Austria in the first knock-out game. The regular time ended 0-0 and Italy managed to win 2-1 after extra time. The second half of that game was the one where Italy had suffered the most from all the duels played so far, however, they still qualified.

The most recent match was against Belgium and they got a 2-1 win there. After leading 2-1 at halftime, Italy played a perfect second half as they did not allow Belgium to have a single shot on goal, while having also more ball possession than their rivals. The big blow here will be the absence of Spinazzola as he suffered a bad injury, but apart from him, Mancini will play tonight with his best men. With the defensive duo Bonucci-Chiellini I expect them to be very solid in the back and once again their key part should be the midfield with Jorginho-Barella-Verrati.

Spain, on the other hand, has done pretty good to reach this stage, but they definitely had some ups and downs during their road to the semi-final. In the group stage they finished second after Sweden, as they failed to win any of the first two games and secured a ticket for the next stage only after beating Slovakia in the third duel.

After the group stage, they had to face Croatia and it was a real roller coaster, as the regular time finished 3-3 where they conceded twice in seven minutes to lose a 3-1 lead. In extra time they scored twice but they risked a lot there. In the quarter-final, the rival was Switzerland which was playing without their captain and best player Xhaka. Once again they struggled a lot needing the penalties to advance to the next stage after Swiss players missed three penalty kicks.

In conclusion, I think Italy can win this match or at least it can end in a draw. Italy has proved to be a very functional team and despite the heavy absence of Spinazzola I still fancy them to dominate their rivals in midfield like they have done mostly so far. Spain is far away from the team we are used to seeing and I do not see them winning this.