Italy defeated Austria in extra time to make it the quarter finals. Interestingly it was substitutes Federico Chiesa and Matteo Pessina who gave italy the much needed lead in the extra time. However, a goal by Austria’s Kalajdzic in the 113th minute added on to the drama.
In the now or never game for Austria, they gave their best performance against Italy, which proved to be a better team in the first half of the match. But with Austria putting on a tough fight, the teams headed toward their the dressing room locked in a goalless draw at the break.
However, Marko Anrautovic tried giving Austria, but his goal was ruled out by VAR as an offside, following which Italy managed to keep them away from scoring, thereby the match went to extra time. During which Italy’s substitute players managed to score two goals to give their team the much needed victory in the round of 16 clash at London’s Wembley Stadium on Saturday. After regulation time ended goalless, the Italians netted two goals in the first-half of extra time, with Federico Chiesa, who also came off the bench, being the other scorer. There was some late drama with the Austrians pulling one back in the 114th minute through Sasa Kalajdzic, but Roberto Mancini’s side held on to advance to the quarter finals.
In group A, no other team has managed to impress more Italy, who qualified with back-to-back 3-0 victories over Turkey and Switzerland before taking their winning streak to 11 games – all without conceding a goal.
Meanwhile, Austria’s first two Group C matches saw them winning comfortably by 3-1 against North Macedonia which was followed by a 2-0 defeat by the Netherlands.
However, the team had saved its best performance for their match against Italy.