Key events
26 min: Now Maguire takes an age over a restart, and the referee issues some more beneficial advice. England are on top here, with Italy agitated, but they’d do well not to test the referee’s patience any more. Any booking now would be so unnecessary.
25 min: Elsewhere on the touchline, Roberto Mancini paces around with a concerned look on his face. A furrowed brow. He momentarily considers chewing his fingernails, but thinks better of it. A worried man.
23 min: Pickford orchestrates some patient pinging around at the back. It doesn’t half annoy the home fans, who whistle long and hard. Then the substitute Trippier takes his sweet time to return the ball from the England dugout for an Italy throw. That earns him a stern talking-to from the referee. Italy collectively irritated right now.
21 min: Rice slips Kane into the Italy box down the right. Kane whistles a magnificent ball across the face of goal, but Bellingham, busting a gut to reach it from deep, can’t quite extend a telescopic leg far enough. Any touch and that was two.
19 min: Other than that one run by Spinazzola, Italy haven’t responded to falling behind at all. England look pretty comfortable. Bellingham and Saka combine down the middle and nearly open the hosts up. Saka claims an errant hand has stopped the attack, but the referee’s not interested.
17 min: Shaw crosses low from the left. Easy for Donnarumma. That goal’s taken a fair bit of air out of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. The away fans giving it plenty as they belt out God Save The King. Possibly a better rendition than the one performed by the singer during the pre-match shenanigans, who according to Jacob Steinberg, our man in Naples, “was all over the place … she seemed to start it twice … she then got replaced very abruptly for the Italy anthem and was having what appeared to be a very long debrief during it … there were very Italian hand gestures.”
15 min: Italy attempt to respond immediately, Spinazzola whipping a cross-cum-shot in from a tight position on the left. Easy for Pickford, who catches calmly at his near post.
GOAL! Italy 0-1 England (Rice 13)
Saka swings the corner into the mixer. Italy fail to deal with it. The ball drops to Kane on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box. His low shot is blocked, but pings back to Rice, who slams home, into the bottom right from ten yards!
12 min: Bellingham strides down the right this time before sending a fierce rising shot towards the top-right corner. It’s heading in, so Donnarumma is forced to tip over the bar. And from the resulting corner …
11 min: Saka curls the corner in long from the right. Donnarumma punches, albeit not in a particularly confident manner. The ball whistles out for another corner, but the whistle goes for a free kick, one of those 50-50 decisions that a keeper will always get.
10 min: Bellingham strides in from the left and draws a foul from Toloi. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Italian box this time. Shaw curls the free kick deep. Maguire rises to win a header and force England’s first corner. Saka to take.
8 min: Saka sashays down the inside-right channel and makes it to the edge of the Italian box. His shot isn’t all that, bobbling through to Donnarumma, but it was a fine run.
7 min: Grealish drifts infield from the left and goes over, claiming Di Lorenzo tugged him. He might have a point, too, but he doesn’t get the free kick. Maybe he went over a little too easily.
6 min: Nothing comes of it. England look a bit shaky, though. They’ve yet to find their feet.
5 min: Verratti and Barella nearly combine on the edge of the England box. Kane intercepts and clears. Italy come again, though, Pellegrini driving down the left and winning the first corner of the game.
3 min: Barella is skittled by Bellingham out on the Italian right. The first big free kick of the evening and so everyone lines up on the edge of the English box in anticipation … and Italy anticipate better than England, who snooze as Pellegrini swings it in. Di Lorenzo strides clear of everyone to meet the dropping ball and the visitors are extremely fortunate to see him miskick. The ball dribbles through to Pickford.
2 min: A fairly scrappy start, though the hosts are seeing most of the ball during it.
Italy get the ball rolling. One hell of an atmosphere in Naples, like that’s breaking news.
The teams are out! Just in time for the national anthem of both Italy and England. First performed by singer-songwriter Adriano Celentano in the original satirical approximation of what English sounds like to the Italian pop kids …
… and later translated into cockney-infused gibberish by the bloke from Runaround. All right!
Gareth Southgate speaks to 4. “It’s one of the hardest games in world football … not only the quality of the players they’ve got but the historic nature of the football nation … we haven’t got a great record here, and tonight is an opportunity to put that right … Hendo was a big part of our midfield during the World Cup but hasn’t been able to train fully for the last week, so we’re keeping him back … Kalvin has played really well for us and is a super player … he’s at a big club where it’s hard to get into the team, which is not ideal for his rhythm, but he’s more than capable of doing a job … Grealish is in a good moment with his club and full of confidence … it’ll be important for us to retain possession and have runners in behind to stretch the defence … we’ve got to look at the qualification over eight games and if we can get a win it’d be a great start … obviously that’s the objective and we’ve got to play the football we were playing two, three months ago.”
Channel 4 have just shown a disturbing film in which poor Harry Kane is forced to sit down and watch unexpurgated footage of his World Cup penalty miss against France. “I have a routine, a process … to execute [the first penalty] was really nice … I’ve seen [the second penalty] on social media and stuff, I haven’t sat back and watched the game or anything like that … it’s tough, you know … watching back it still hurts … and probably will for most of my life … but hopefully I can have some special moments in an England shirt in the future that will override that.” Come on, Channel 4! Where was the red triangle? Special Discretion Required! Special Discretion Required!
The Azzurri emerge from their two-decade Puma nightmare tonight. Look at this instant classic! Definitely nearer the Diadora end of the scale than the Kappa. The embroidery on the pennant isn’t half bad either. Italy without question stealing a sartorial march on England, though we’ve known that for at least a couple of millennia.
Jude Bellingham speaks to Channel 4. “It’s been a quick turnaround … there’s been a bit of reflection on the World Cup and the positives we can take from it … the lads are definitely confident coming into the game and we’re looking forward to playing in such an amazing fixture … every midfield battle helps to sway the tide of the game so it’s important we get on the front foot and are aggressive.”
“Buona sera,” begins our man Philip Cornwall, who is in Naples at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with his England supporter’s hat on rather than his regulation Guardian press titfer. “Half the Italian armed police seem to be here but it all seems peaceful, and I travelled by local train rather than on the England coaches. Names on tickets are being checked against passports four times and you get patted down by the police or stewards three times, including twice within 10 yards. Remains to be seen what it is like afterwards, of course, but locals have assured me that it will be fine as it’s not Napoli. PS: I have never been anywhere that people have been celebrating winning a league title this early in the season.”
England make two changes to the side named for the World Cup quarter-final with France in Al Khawr last December. Kalvin Phillips and Jack Grealish come in for Jordan Henderson and Phil Foden, who drop to the bench.
The teams
Italy: Donnarumma, Di Lorenzo, Toloi, Acerbi, Spinazzola, Barella, Jorginho, Verratti, Berardi, Retegui, Pellegrini.
Subs: Falcone, Meret, Darmian, Gnonto, Scamacca, Pessina, Emerson, Scalvini, Cristante, Politano, Tonali, Romagnoli.
England: Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Shaw, Rice, Phillips, Bellingham, Saka, Grealish, Kane.
Subs: Trippier, Ramsdale, Henderson, Dier, Chilwell, James, Guehi, Gallagher, Foden, Maddison, Forster, Toney.
Referee: Srdjan Jovanović (Serbia).
Preamble
The qualifiers of Euro 2024 pick up where the final of Euro 2020 left off. Yep, the cycle loops all the way around to Italy versus England again, the closest Uefa’s international fixture list has ever come to replicating the narrative structure of Finnegans Wake. The European champions welcome the team they beat in that aforementioned Wembley showpiece to Naples for the first match of what promises to be a hotly contested Group C qualification campaign.
All the signs point to an emotional one. England are looking to avenge their defeat in the Euro 2020 final. Harry Kane is looking for his 54th international goal, one that would make him England’s all-time leading scorer ahead of Wayne Rooney. And the hosts will be remembering the beloved Italian icon Gianluca Vialli, who passed away in January. Throw in the usual levels of Neapolitan passion – currently cranked up to 11 given Napoli are champions-elect – and this should be an evening to remember. One way or another. Kick off is at 7.45pm GMT, 8.45pm in Naples. It’s on!
