In the early morning of June 25, Group B of EURO 2024 ended with two matches between Albania and Spain and Croatia and Italy. While the match between Albania and Spain was just a formality, all attention was focused on the remaining match.
The match between Italy and Croatia.
In this match, Croatia was held to a 1-1 draw by Italy. Luka Modric opened the scoring for Croatia in the 55th minute but Italy equalized thanks to Mattia Zaccagni in the 90+8 minute. With this result, Italy won a ticket to the round of 16 as the second place in Group B. Their next opponent was determined to be Switzerland.
Italy have had a tough group stage journey, going through all sorts of emotions. They came from behind to beat Albania 2-1 in the opening game, then lost 0-1 to Spain and finally held Croatia to a dramatic draw. What Italy has shown so far has not satisfied their fans. However, Italy still achieved their goal of getting through the group stage and now they have exciting knockout matches ahead.
The joy of victory of the Italian team.
Meanwhile, Switzerland qualified for the round of 16 as runners-up in Group A. They beat Hungary 3-1 in their opening match and then drew 1-1 with Scotland and Germany. Switzerland have yet to lose in this year's tournament and they promise to cause a lot of trouble for Italy. Both teams have many outstanding stars in their squads, which will create an exciting match at 11:00 p.m. on June 29.
Head-to-head history calls for Italy, the team has won 29, drawn 24 and lost only 7 out of 60 encounters with Switzerland. But Switzerland is not an easy team to play against if you look at the last 6 matches between the two sides when Italy has won only 1 time, the rest are 5 draws.
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