Spain lined up 433 in this game almost as much as in the first, with defenders Larporte, Normand, Carvajal, Cucurella, Rodri midfielder, Pedri, Fabián Ruiz, Morata in the forward line, Yamal, Williams
Italy lined up in 4231 with defenders Bastoni, Calafiori, Di Lorenzo, Dimarco, Jorginho midfielder, Barella, Pellegrini attacking midfielder, wings Fratessi, Chiesa, Scamacacaca strikers
(Pre-emptive linking)
The start of the game lasted just over a minute. In Spain, Williams finished off a breakaway cross from the left that found its way into the air in the center of the box.Pedri was left unmarked in the 7-yard box to head the ball, which was barely tipped over by Donnarumma. The first time alone was going to be a cracker.
For the next five minutes, it became clear. On the Italian right, DiLorenzo could barely hold Williams. he could break at any time. He could shoot or pass. On the other side, Dimarco could barely stop Yamal, but that was only because the Italian defense didn't come up to attack and Yamal's speed couldn't be played. The Italian defense had been breached on both flanks, and the center was showing its seams. pedri's header proved to be a quick way for Spain to produce back-to-back scoring shots.
When Italy saw that things were not going well he immediately started to stall. after 5 minutes Pellegrini was kicked by Pedri while defending so he fell to the ground and received treatment, dragged the ball for a while and then started to play again. fratessi was caught by Cucurella on the right side and fell to the ground. There was a lot of little action from Italy when he tried to attack but it was still hard to stop Spain.Spain launched a quick attack after 9 minutes.Morata pulled up the left wing to receive the ball and then passed it quickly.Williams surprisingly sprinted down to the ball on the 7 footer and he didn't score.The ball was played through to the back of the net and the ball was played through to the back of the net.
At this point it looked like Italy was going to drop points soon, but they continued to foul and play bad football. 11 minutes in, Spain passed the ball at the back and Laporte was about to pass the keeper back. scamacca ran over and pushed him straight down. Because it's a foul on the attacker in front of the ball, it's not easy to get a card. Italy started to use the attacking players to make as many fouls or go down as possible to get the game stopped by the referee. donnarumma even ran out and complained to the referee for a yellow card. One of the starting keepers even received a card for a loud whisper at the start of the game.Donnarumma is by no means stupid.
Spain looked majestic, but after a while of doing this, they started to change. 20 minutes in, Italy suddenly made a big split-side shift. dimarco, completely unmarked, raced all the way to the box and played a 45-degree pass. Because of the bad pass, he was taken away by Spain again. However, Italy doesn't lose any ground to Spain on this chance. Spain seems to be starting to let the two wing backs attack and Italy is targeting their gaps.
Fabi24 when án Ruiz pumped in a shot from nearly 30 yards, this one was fast and Donnarumma barely managed to tip it over the bar.
After the first half, Spain's attack slowed down a bit, while Italy focused their defense on the right flank, just to guard Williams on Spain's left flank, not only Fratessi would run back to help DiLorenzo, but you'd also see Chiesa running deeper into her own defense as well, and Italy turned the area directly into a meat grinder, so that Williams couldn't get through, and Cucurella tried to help, but the Italians' timing for Spain's Overlap release was better than ever, and gradually Spain couldn't get through to Italy.
And Italy started to get to grips with the scale of the fouls, and before the end of the first half they finally got going. 'Attacking', in Italy, both Dimarco and Barella were deliberately messing around with the Spanish players, Laporte and Normand were both put down as they were going up with the ball, Dimarco even pretended to wrap it up and then couldn't stop, leaving Normand to be pushed by Calafiori as he couldn't stop and ended up headbutting into Dimarco's calf, but Dimarco immediately turned around then to try to avoid it because he couldn't blink anymore, so the referee wouldn't issue him a yellow card, the
