Italy, who surprisingly failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, are on fire in the UEFA Euro 2020. They are currently unbeaten in 30 games (W25, D5), the joint-longest run in their history, equalling a run under Vittorio Pozzo between 1935 and 1939. And a win tonight against Austria will help Azzurri move closer to their second continental title. The winners of the match will either face Belgium or defending champions, Portugal in the Munich quarter-final.
Italy won Group A, with three wins in three: 3-0 vs Turkey, 3-0 vs Switzerland and 1-0 vs Wales -- all at home. Now they head to London, in England for the knock-outs. Italy have won two of their 13 matches that were held in London (D5, L6), and are winless in five matches there (D3, L2) since beating England 1-0 in 1997 in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley, with Gianfranco Zola scoring the only goal.
This is Austria’s first-ever appearance in the knockout stages of the European Championship, and are in their first in the knockout stage of any major tournament since the 1954 World Cup when they reached the semi-final. They qualified for the Euro 2020 knock-outs after finishing second in Group C, behind the Netherlands. Austria started their campaign with a 3-1 with over North Macedonia but lost 0-2 to the Netherlands. Then defeated Ukraine 1-0 to seal second place.
Austria have lost four of their six games in London in all competitions (W1, D1). This is their first visit to the English capital since a 7-0 friendly defeat in September 1973 (vs England). Their only previous game in London which wasn’t against England came in the 1948 Olympic games, a 3-0 loss to Sweden.
Match and telecast details
Match: Euro 2020, round of 16 match between Italy Vs Austria
Date: June 27 (Sunday), 2021
Time: 12:30 AM IST
Venue: Wembley Stadium, London, England
TV Channels: Sony Sports Network (SONY TEN 2, SONY TEN 3, SONY SIX and SONY TEN 4)
Live Streaming: SonyLIV
Head-to-head: Italy are unbeaten in their last 13 meetings with Austria in all competitions (W10 D3) since a 1-2 friendly loss in December 1960. This is the first match between the sides since a 2-2 friendly draw in August 2008. Italy have also won all four of their meetings with Austria at major international tournaments, all in World Cup -- 1-0 in 1934, 1-0 in 1978, 1-0 in 1990 and 2-1 in 1998.
Key facts
Seven of Italy’s 14 knockout stage games in the European Championship have been drawn (W4, L3). Of these seven draws, they’ve won two and lost three via a penalty shootout, won once via a coin toss and the other went to a replay which they eventually won.
Italy have kept a clean sheet in each of their last 11 matches in all competitions, going 1055 minutes (17 hours and 35 minutes) without conceding since a Donny van de Beek goal for the Netherlands last October. One more clean sheet will see them equal their record for consecutive games without conceding (12), set between 1972 and 1974.
Italy had 60 shots across their three games in the group stages, with their average of 20 shots per game their highest on record in a single edition of the European Championship (since 1980).
David Alaba created nine chances in the group stages, at least four more than any other Austria player. Four of these came in Austria’s 1-0 win against Ukraine last time out.
Likely XIs
Italy: Gianluigi Donnarumma; Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Leonardo Bonucci, Alessandro Bastoni, Leonardo Spinazzola; Nicolo Barella, Jorginho, Marco Verratti; Domenico Berardi, Ciro Immobile, Lorenzo Insigne.
Manager: Roberto Mancini
Austria: Daniel Bachmann; Stefan Lainer, Aleksandar Dragovic, Martin Hinteregger, David Alaba; Xaver Schlager, Florian Grillitsch; Konrad Laimer, Marcel Sabitzer, Christoph Baumgartner; Marco Arnautovic.
Manager: Franco Foda
