Raphael Stevens

Italy’s run to the final of Euro 2020 has, in many ways, highlighted a drastic shift in the country’s soccer culture. Roberto Mancini’s team is young, vibrant and adventurous, designed around a slick and technical midfield and imbued with a bright, attacking style.If it was that vision of Italy that carried the team through the group stage and helped it sweep aside first Austria and then Belgium in the knockout rounds, the team’s semifinal victory against Spain was built on a more familiar iteration: ruthless and redoubtable, cast not in the porcelain image of Lorenzo Insigne and Marco Verratti but the unyielding concrete of Bonucci and Chiellini.It is that Italy that England must overcome, on Sunday evening, if it is to lift the European Championship trophy: the Italy that not only finds pride in its defending but treats it with genuine relish. As Bonucci has previously said, “As a defender, you always like winning, 1-0.”On 24 March 2007, @chiellini played for Italy U21 in the first-ever official match at the new Wembley. Now, he’s back for a final 💙💪#VivoAzzurro #ITA #ITAENG #EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/toSAO3l06h— Italy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@azzurri) July 11, 2021
It has been that way for years for Italy, of course. Chiellini made his national team debut in 2004; Bonucci, only two years younger but a much later bloomer, joined him in 2010. Between them, they now have made 219 appearances for their country, the vast majority of them in tandem. They are so inseparable, at both club and international level, that one of Google’s suggested searches for them is: “Are Chiellini and Bonucci related?”They are not, but even they admit they may as well be. “I think I know Bonucci better than I know my wife,” Chiellini has said. More

Every year is a big soccer year in Italy. When the national league finishes, victorious fans parade through city streets in their cars and mopeds. But it is during the international competitions that the Italian soccer fanaticism takes on a semblance of religious faith.“God Is Italian,” read the headline of a national sports newspaper earlier this week, exalting a victory over Spain in the semifinals. On Sunday, Italy will try to beat England, in London, to add a new chapter to its storied soccer history. It has already been quite a month.Four years after the national team faced the humiliation of failing to qualify for the World Cup, Italy — embracing a mix of youth and fun and its usual defensive excellence — has reset the expectations of its fans. This weekend, the team carries on its shoulders the hopes of a nation badly battered by the coronavirus but making its way out of the pandemic.Despite restrictions that still require masks and social distancing, especially indoors, people have been watching the games in large crowds and celebrating on the streets.“With all caution, people need some normality and the national team this year is a reason to be proud and joyful after so much suffering,” said Daniele Magnani, an amateur soccer coach, who was visiting the national soccer museum in Florence with his wife. More

UEFA ordered Hungary, which hosted some of the biggest crowds of the Euros in Budapest, to play its next three home matches behind closed doors as punishment for “the discriminatory behaviour of its supporters” during the tournament. The organization also fined the Hungarian soccer federation 100,000 euros ($118,000).UEFA, the governing body for soccer in Europe, had opened an investigation into charges that Hungary fans had carried homophobic banners and directed monkey noises at visiting players during Hungary’s group-stage matches in Budapest and Munich.Hungary played their first two games of the tournament against Portugal and France at Puskas Arena in Budapest, and then traveled to Munich for its final group game, against host Germany.UEFA had appointed an ethics and disciplinary inspector on June 20 to conduct a probe into “potential discriminatory incidents” during the matches in Hungary. Five days later, it expanded the investigation to include the game in Germany. More

The battle for the Golden Boot, awarded to the tournament’s top scorer, will be decided today, and the England forwards Harry Kane (four goals) and Raheem Sterling (three) seem to be the only two players left with a realistic chance to catch the current leaders, Patrick Schick and Cristiano Ronaldo, who both scored five before departing Euro 2020.But in reality the race for the tournament’s top scorer has been over for weeks, and the own goal has won it going away.There have been 11 own goals at Euro 2020, more than the combined total that were scored in the 15 previous editions of the European Championship.Own goals in #Euro2020: 11.Own goals at the Euros of 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 & 2016, combined: 9.— Nick Harris (@sportingintel) July 7, 2021
There have been unlucky goals. Strange goals. Slap-your-forehead goals. They have been scored by midfielders and defenders and goalkeepers.In retrospect, the tournament’s first goal — an Italy cross turned into Turkey’s net by one of its defenders, Merih Demiral — was probably an omen we all should have taken more seriously.That marked the first time the tournament had opened its account with a player scoring against his own team, but in the four weeks since that night, the own goals have kept coming. Spain was the beneficiary of two of them in a 5-0 win over Slovakia, and Portugal managed to score two on itself — only four minutes apart — in a 4-2 loss to Germany.Pedri’s, the opening goal in Spain’s memorable round-of-16 victory against Croatia, might have been the worst of the bunch …… but it had some solid competition for that title:The most recent one, No. 11 overall, even helped send Denmark out in the semifinals:Will the final get us to an even dozen? One would hope not. England, for one, would never live it down. More