FINAL
Germany 0-3 Italy
Chiesa 56'
Immobile 78'
Insigne 88'
Eamonn Foster
Wembley Stadium, London, England
Sunday 12th July
This report comes in a little later after I found myself dragged along, physically- I had to collect my laptop from the press box this morning- by a dozen jubilant Italians intent on a full night of glorious celebration in more than a couple too many bars across the city of London. Along the way we toasted to Roberto Mancini’s Italy side, the men of the hour, we toasted to the runners-up Germany and we toasted to the bizarre roadshow nature of Euro 2020. We toasted to football, and its incredible ability to instantly unite strangers across the globe, and we toasted to life. We sang the Euro 2020 anthem I Feel Football / Football Feels Life many more times than I would like to admit. The same goes for how many times I was kissed and embraced. As they say, it’s a funny old game. As I bid farewell to my joyous Italian friends this morning, after a fry-up that was as welcome as it was extortionate in price, we vowed to meet again in Germany at Euro 2024. In the meantime, Italians can proudly rejoice in being the champions of Europe. That is certainly not what most had expected would happen going into the tournament a month ago, and it was not even something many had expected going into this weekend’s Euro 2020 final. Germany just seemed too strong to let anyone else win.
Now to the events on the pitch. The first half of a final is usually cagey, in which little of note happens. Yet here at Wembley it was all Germany, their heady blend of pressing and sweating and silky interplay combining to give the impression there could only be one winner in this contest. In fact, the real surprise going into the half-time break was that Germany were not two or three goals to the good.
Throughout the first half Serge Gnabry and Marco Reus posed the biggest threats to the Italian defence. There is little doubt that Serge Gnabry loves playing in London and he was in the mood again tonight, darting here, there and everywhere and always showing for the ball and looking to get behind the Italian defence as quickly as possible. Arsenal fans will have had mixed feelings watching their former player dismantle both Tottenham and Chelsea in Champions League away ties for Bayern Munich this season, scoring six goals, but here he was a pure joy to behold for all but Italian eyes. Meanwhile Borussia Dortmund’s Reus, on Germany’s other flank, has been enjoying a run of some of his finest form in a career plagued by injury. Cutting in from the right, he made Italy’s left-back Cristiano Biraghi look painfully clumsy at times and should have given his country the lead after finding himself in the Italy penalty area on two occasions after ghosting in behind the Internazionale full-back. The only thing that was lacking was a cool head.
Chelsea supporters will have been watching their new signing Timo Werner with keen interest. The German centre-forward had really delivered in the run-up to this final, scoring in all but one of Germany’s six matches and his tally of six goals would ordinarily be enough to win the Golden Boot but on this occasion he has been unfortunate to compete against the mercurial talent of Kylian Mbappé, who with seven goals was leading the goalscoring charts by one.
However, Werner’s desperation to equal or better Mbappé’s tally showed in the latter stages of the first half. Whilst he spent the first twenty minutes trotting about the pitch with the air of The Main Man, calmly chewing gum and dropping back to roll a few stylish passes back to his full-backs, it appeared to dawn on him after half an hour that this match was somewhat passing him by and so he tried to impose himself on the game with a couple of speculative efforts which did not worry Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in the slightest. After the second wayward effort, Chiellini and Bonucci exchanged knowing glances: their plan was working; they were keeping Germany’s leading scorer at bay.
However, the German threat was by no means limited to Werner and Joachim Low’s side thought they had taken a deserved lead after twenty minutes thanks to a Gnabry half-volley from the edge of the box which crept in the bottom left-hand corner of Donnarumma’s goal. It was a fine, instinctive strike that looked to have broken the Italian resistance but as Gnabry and his teammates wheeled away in celebration it quickly became clear that it was not so simple: the linesman’s flag was up. Werner, stood offside in the six-yard box, was adjudged to have been invading the goalkeeper’s line of vision. A look of guilt was etched on Werner’s face and a quick check on VAR confirmed the decision to rule out the goal. Nobody would have suspected at that point that it was to be the only time the Germans would find the back of the Italian net.
The first half wore on, the play almost exclusively in the Italian half. Whilst Bonucci and Chiellini stood tall and made several blocks and headers to keep Germany at bay, it would not have inspired much confidence in Mancini’s side to think that Germany had the luxury of the pacy Leroy Sane and Julian Brandt waiting in the wings for the second half. In the middle of the park for Italy Marco Verratti and Nicolò Barella, who has impressed this month, struggled to win the ball from the Germans who had Tim Kroos orchestrating at the heart of everything. Jorginho sat just behind them and although he saw little of the ball he did succeed in crucially blocking some inward runs from Gnabry and Reus. Federico Chiesa, who has struggled of late to stretch defences in the same way he did in the opening two matches, in which he scored four goals to stand third in the race for the Golden Boot, saw little of the ball. Ciro Immobile harried the German defence but looked alone up top for Italy. The diminutive Lorenzo Insigne was limited to the laborious job of tracking the runs of the bulky Lukas Klostermann, who was having success acting as a foil to the more obvious threats of Marco Reus and Joshua Kimmich.
By half-time the Germans had racked up 75% possession, six corners and seven shots. Italy had managed just two shots and three corners, from which their aerial threat was twice nullified by the referee’s whistle, having adjudged Chiellini and Bonucci to be overly aggressive in their attempts to lose their markers. Manuel Neuer in the German goal was a mere observer like me for almost all of the first half. Nonetheless, it was still goalless going into the interval.
The last time these two great footballing nations met in an event as close in importance to this one would be the semi final of the 2006 World Cup. That year Italy spoiled the party of home nation Germany with a euphoric Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero scoring two in extra time to eliminate the Germans and reach the final, in which they achieved the ultimate glory by overcoming France to become crowned world champions.
Since that painful defeat in Dortmund, Germany went through a remarkable and- in the eyes of Germans at least- welcome revolution. Whereas the likes of Michael Ballack, Bernd Schneider and Christoph Metzelder were key figures in 2006, by the time of their World Cup glory in 2014 it was a whole new generation, boasting the distinctive talents of Thomas Müller, Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng and Tim Kroos who, all aged between 23-25 years old, were enjoying scintillating upward trajectories and quite deservedly won the World Cup- and in the process restored Germany with a healthy dose of self-confidence.
Italy, by contrast, went downhill. It was difficult for it not to be this way after winning the World Cup with that side; by the next World Cup in 2010 age had caught up with so many of the sacred household names of the 2006 winning side. Whilst Gianluigi Buffon and Andrea Pirlo remained, their company was nowhere near as illustrious as that of four years previous. What had been a dream centre-back pairing of Fabio Cannavaro and Alessandro Nesta was now Gabriel Paletta and Andrea Barzagli. Pirlo was accompanied in midfield by the lesser-heralded names of Antonio Candreva and Claudio Marchisio. And whereas in 2006 Del Piero, Francesco Totti, Luca Toni and Filippo Inzaghi had vied for the prized forward positions, by 2010 they were shared out between the unconvincing trio of Mario Balotelli, Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne. It all went hand in hand with the sad reality that Serie A no longer held the same allure as it did in the nineties and early 2000s for neither foreign spectators nor foreign players, and as the league’s star fell so did its national team’s. Four years on, in 2014, with a similarly sub-standard side to that of 2010, Italy joined Fabio Capello’s England in the humiliation of not even making it out of Group D, with both countries humbled by the superiority of both Uruguay and Costa Rica. And, further down the line still, Italy did not even qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
Now whilst Balotelli’s club and international career has since gone down a baffling and bumpy figurative footballing path, there was great relief, vindication and, above all else, joy here at Wembley on a balmy Sunday evening in 2020 for the likes of Immobile and Insigne, whose mixed bags whilst representing the Azzurri have culminated here with the glory of winning Euro 2020. Insigne, adored in his native Naples, had managed just 11 goals in 43 outings prior to Euro 2020. Immobile’s record was remarkably similar with 15 in 48 and none at a major tournament and in all honesty he has even endured a difficult tournament here at Euro 2020. Of course, he will not care one bit now that he has a winner’s medal around his neck and scored Italy’s second on the night which was key in making winning suddenly feel like a wonderfully feasible outcome for the Italians. This is their moment in the sun.
At the heart of the Italian defence Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci give the impression of relentless winners but they too have fallen short various times at the highest level. At Juventus they have consistently impressed with inspired defensive displays, racking up several Serie A titles in the process, but on the international stage they have not won a Champions League with the Turin side, despite regularly advancing far into the tournament and twice reaching the final. To lift a trophy outside their native Italy will have been very sweet indeed.
Elsewhere in the team fresh faces have helped to reinvigorate the Azzurri: in goal Gianluigi Donnarumma has stepped up to the immense challenge of replacing the iconic Gianluigi Buffon, the midfield has really benefited from the calming presence of Jorginho and the energy of Nicolò Barella and from the wing Federico Chiesa has been a revelation that few had truly anticipated.
And it was this man, Chiesa, who produced a moment of such quality in the 56th minute to turn the game on its head and put Italy in the driving seat and in the process go some way to silencing the critics who had dismissed his early run of goals in Rome as little more than a fluke.
Chiellini, clearing the danger in a much more astute way than simply lumping the ball to safety, sent a 40-yard pass straight to the feet of Chiesa, who had dropped infield and was little more than ten yards from the halfway line with his back to the German goal when the ball landed at his feet. Given his distance from the goal, Klostermann and Kimmich were happy to allow him to offload the ball as they regained defensive shape. Chiesa, with his second touch, offloaded the ball to Verratti, who was stood on the edge of the centre circle. After passing to Verratti, Chiesa spun and continued on his way towards the penalty area. Verratti had little more to do than simply return the ball to Chiesa, who was now ten yards in front of him and had the presence of mind to end what had been a beeline towards the German goal by using his first touch to nudge the slightly under-hit pass into the metre of space just in front of his favoured right foot. In ordinary circumstances this would not in itself be reason to panic for the German defence. Unfortunately for Germany, though, this was not an ordinary circumstance but instead a moment of divine inspiration for Chiesa. His second touch was a strike that was a joy to behold for the millions watching around the continent, as the ball rocketed into the top corner of the German net. The goal was made to look even more spectacular by the desperate dive of Manuel Neuer, who in all honesty would have probably had more chance of retrieving the ball fired over the crossbar by Olivier Giroud in the semi-final than of saving this shot. Chiesa sprinted to the Italian supporters, clearly unable to comprehend his own magnificence but more than delighted to revel in it. And rightly so: they do not come much better than that.
As the Italians celebrated, the Germans regrouped and as play got underway it felt as if possibly the game’s first goal would be enough to rouse, at long last, the Germans into converting their superiority into goals. The next twenty minutes were twenty of the most exciting and frenetic of the tournament: Germany were inches from equalizing when Reus wriggled past Bonucci on the byline and curled one against the far post from the most improbable of angles, Verratti was booked for simulation and the ever-dangerous Gnabry was brought down in the penalty area yet somehow the referee overlooked it. Four yellow cards were handed out and it was impossible to know how the game would end. One thing that felt certain however was that Germany would score at least once. Oh, football, how you tease us.
We now all know of course that Germany did not score; it was instead Italy, in the 78th minute, who scored a second to take one huge step closer to winning Euro 2020. The goalscorer this time was the much-maligned Immobile, who lurked in the penalty area in the second phase of play after Klostermann only managed to head a Jorginho corner as far as Verratti on the edge of the box. The Paris Saint-Germain midfielder did well to find the momentarily unmarked Immobile, who only had to swing a right leg to send the ball flying into the German net in a moment which was delightfully reminiscent of Fabio Grosso’s glorious 2006 semi-final extra-time strike against Germany.
An abiding image for me personally will be that of looking across the press box upon hearing a booming, throaty yell of ‘Scheisse!!!’ and seeing ex-German national team goalkeeper and World Cup finalist Oliver Kahn slumped over his press desk, momentarily head in his hands before looking up again and looking every bit likely to cause some serious harm to the nearest available thing which could tip him over the edge. I looked away, keen to not be that thing, but the image will always stay with me. I hope he found some tranquility later on.
Leroy Sane was then belatedly sent on for the burly Klostermann and Julian Brandt replaced an exhausted Leon Goretzka but it all felt suddenly very desperate for Joachim Low and his Germany team. Confidence had completely deserted the Germans and the Italians were only too happy to give it a new home, totally relishing every header, tackle and block. Unsurprisingly, Bonucci and Chiellini set the example here, knowing glory was in sight.
With hindsight one can easily condemn Low’s decision last year to very publicly turn his back on the then-Bayern Munich trio of Thomas Muller, Jerome Boateng and Mats Hummels, insisting on the need for fresh faces after Germany’s poor 2018 World Cup campaign. With a staggering 246 international appearances between them, the trio were understandably outraged both at Low’s decision and the apparent blame laid at their door for Germany’s failings. Since being axed from the international setup, Muller and Boateng, aged only 30 and 31 respectively, went on this season to help Bayern win their eighth consecutive Bundesliga title whilst Hummels, now back at Borussia Dortmund after three trophy-laden years in Munich, has enjoyed a typically solid season at centre-half. Perhaps they were not the problem.
Still, Germans will get little joy from bemoaning bygones right now and their night was to get worse still. Seven minutes after their second, and with just five minutes of normal time remaining, it would have been reasonable for Italy to head towards the corner flag once they finally managed to retrieve the ball from a German side that had not yet accepted defeat. However, the young Nicolò Zaniolo of Roma, who had not long replaced Federico Chiesa- who had exited to the longest of standing ovations- had no interest in merely being an extra in the game’s final stages and ushered a couple of blue shirts to join him as he spread a ball out to the wing and jogged forwards. Upon receiving the ball once more, he refused to calm the blood pressure of millions of Italians as he turned to face the German goal before clipping a 30-yard ball straight towards the German goal, where Lorenzo Insigne lay in wait. The pass was fast and gave Lorenzo, who stands at only 163cm tall, little time to think. That turned out to be a blessing for the little Napolitano who, with his back to goal, somehow outjumped Antonio Rudiger, who is a whole foot taller, and glanced a looping header into the far corner of the German goal. This time Neuer stood motionless, stunned, as the rest of his teammates fell to their knees in despair. Insigne, meanwhile, raced off with his teammates, euphoric. The moment, the night and ultimately the tournament belonged to Italy.
Italy can smile once again.
Man of the Match: Giorgio Chiellini
Attendance: 88,913