Italy vs Spain

Italy and Spain are set to lock horns at Wembley Stadium in a mouth-watering Euro 2020 semi-final showdown.

After surviving an extra-time drama against Austria in the last-16, Italy squeezed past Belgium in the quarter-finals, with all three goals in a 2-1 win coming in the first half. Romelu Lukaku’s penalty in the first-half stoppage-time marked Italy’s first game without a clean sheet in 13 internationals. Interestingly, only Germany (20) have reached the semi-finals within major tournaments on more occasions than Italy (12), with ‘Gli Azzurri’ successfully negotiating nine of their previous 11 last-four ties. Including extra-time, Roberto Mancini’s men are the only team to qualify for the semi-finals with all five wins at Euro 2020. They now look to become the second European nation to win all of their first six matches at major tournaments since the Netherlands in the 2010 World Cup. Yet, the Italians have claimed just two wins in their last 14 meetings with Spain in all competitions (D7, L5).

Meanwhile, the Spaniards squeaked into the semi-finals after beating Switzerland in a nerve-shredding penalty shoot-out, returning among the top four at a major tournament for the first time since lifting the World Cup crown in 2012. If this tie takes to penalties, ‘La Furia Roja’ will be confident of making it through, as they’ve progressed via penalties at the European Championships on more occasions (4) than any other nation. Additionally, each time Spain reached the semi-finals, they went on to win the tournament, doing so in back-to-back Euros (2008 and 2012) and the 2010 World Cup. But, they have to be wary of winning just one of their previous nine encounters at major tournaments (D4, L4), losing their most recent such fixture 2-0 in the Euro 2016 last-16. On the bright side, Luis Enrique’s men take the field unbeaten in 13 consecutive internationals (W7, D6) despite scoring 2+ goals in just 46.15% of those games.

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