Twenty-seven seconds into the second half, Switzerland went 2-0 up against Italy in their last-16 clash in Berlin.
But, hang on, didn’t Italy take kick-off?
Yes, they did — and they made a complete mess of it.
Luciano Spalletti’s team started the second half with two players by the ball (the striker Gianluca Scamacca and midfielder Nicolo Fagioli), six players lined up along on the halfway line (three on the right and three on the left) and two players just deeper than the centre circle (the centre-backs Gianluca Mancini and Alessandro Bastoni).
The ball was played back by Fagioli to one of the centre-backs, Mancini, and the three players on the right pushed forward, while the three on the left looked, at best, a little lost.
The good old-fashioned hoof up the pitch has been in vogue at Euro 2024, as analysed in great detail by The Athletic’s Jordan Campbell last week, and it seemed like we were about to see the latest example.
Mancini took a touch and passed it straight back to Fagioli, who had arguably been Italy’s best performer in the opening 45 minutes, on his first start at the tournament. But his day was about to go downhill.
Fagioli turned and whipped a dreadful, and fairly blind, pass forward — in the loose direction of the overloaded right-hand side — that was easily picked off by Granit Xhaka. The midfielder was brilliant again today, as he has been all tournament for Switzerland and all season for Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
Switzerland counter-attacked with six players but Italy still had decent numbers back, and should have felt comfortable dealing with the threat. There were four Italy players between Breel Embolo, Switzerland’s most advanced player, and Gianluigi Donnarumma in the Italy goal.
But everything from this point from Italy was passive in the extreme.
Xhaka slipped the ball wide to Ruben Vargas on the left, who pushed forward and then played a pass towards the overlapping Michel Aebischer outside him. It wasn’t a great pass, and Aebischer had to run past the ball before taking it on his right foot.
He teed it back to Vargas, who played it inside to Xhaka.
The former Arsenal midfielder played it back outside to Aebischer, who then found Vargas with a neat pass.
Switzerland weren’t even doing anything particularly clever at this point, but Italy challenges were nowhere to be seen.
Vargas, who had drifted unnoticed towards the edge of the Italy box, took one touch and curled a sublime finish past Donnarumma and into the far corner of the net.
There were at least 44 minutes and 33 seconds of play left in the match but with that it was 2-0, and effectively game over.
After an abject first half, Italy needed to start quickly after half-time. Instead, they did the opposite, committing an egregious act of self-sabotage and allowing Switzerland to take control of the game.
Murat Yakin’s side outclassed the reigning champions and were fully deserving of what in reality was a very comfortable win.
Next up for them is a quarter-final against the winners of Sunday’s match between England and Slovakia.