Giorgio Chiellini was forced to leave the pitch after 20 minutes four years ago as Italy ended up too tired at the most important match of the tournament. Today, he was able to write history by keeping Morata quiet and scoring a goal of his own. “We deserved to close it off earlier, we suffered in the last 15 minutes we did well and felt good and we wanted to win after they dominated for so long,” said the defender. On Saturday 2nd June, it will take another effort. “We are at the start and there is a long way to go and now the real action starts. Germany are favourites, they thrashed us in March and we will have to do something extraordinary against them. What you saw tonight won’t be enough.” Emanuele Giaccherini was one of the best players on the pitch again tonight and only a great stop from De Gea denied him his second goal of the competition: “We prepared everything down to the smallest detail,” explained the midfielder. “The coach had given us the right instructions, but today we had to show a lot of heart to win. We did it and you could see that. This was a well-deserved win, we had a lot of chances and we could have finished the game off earlier.” After making some mistakes in the previous match against the Republic of Ireland, Leonardo Bonucci was back to showing his value and it was no surprise he was named as man of the match. “We were convinced we could put them in difficulty by playing as we know how to and by showing character. We prepared for the game in a perfect manner, we created a lot and I’m struggling to think of a time when Spain were in so much difficulty. The secret of this team is that we’re not a collection of players but a real team. The objective is now to recharge our batteries because there’s another battle ahead of us.”
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