Well, the news of the semifinals of Euro 2020 had just come in as Italy (Who were without defender Leonardo Spinazzola through injury) became the 1st team to reach the final after they dominated Spain on penalties (There was a goal to Italian striker Enrico Chiesa before Spanish striker Alvaro Morata who just come off the bench, equalized & then during the penalty shootout, an Italian player named Locatelli fluffed up an attempt of a shot before Spanish player Dani Olmo missed it because his shot went way too high then during the shootout, the Italian goalkeeper of Gianluigi Donnaruma saved a certain shot of goal scorer Morata before Chelsea player Jorginho nailing a shot that put Italy through to the final) & how did the Italians reach the final of the Euros after failing to qualify at the last Football World Cup? Well, to start with, they had some good players in which they injected new blood while they still had experienced old veterans like Giorgio Chellini & Leonardo Bonucci (And they used to have goalkeeper Gianluigi 'Gigi' Buffon (The Football World Cup winning player for Italy way back in 2006) since he retired from international football).
And finally England managed to reach their 1st European Football Championship final (They haven't reached a major football tournament final since 1966 in which they triumphed to win the Football World Cup against Germany (Who were known as West Germany at the time) on home soil at Wembley with Geoff Hurst scoring a hat trick of goals (The last hat trick in the World Cup final) & after the match had ended, it was the moment that Her Majesty the Queen famously shook hands with the winning captain, Bobby Moore before the English captain lifted the Jules Rimet trophy) with a tremendous victory over Denmark (The Danes scored the 1st goal of the match off a direct free kick taken from young Danish player Mikkel Damsgaard followed by an own goal by Danish captain Simon Kjaer then this happened during extra time as England had controversially awarded a penalty before Leicester City's Kasper Schmeichel saved a certain penalty but couldn't save another as English skipper Harry Kane scored to put them in front which proved to be the game changer & held on until the end to take the win by the narrowest of margins).
So it's Italy to play England in the Euro 2020 final (Their last meeting between the 2 sides was in 2018 where the match had ended in a draw (It was Jamie Vardy who scored first during the 1st half before Lorenzo Insigne scoring a late penalty that denied England a chance of taking victory) but the last time both sides had met at a major football tournament was at the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil in which the Italians dominated the opening match of Group D against the English, winning by just a single goal (Italy opened the account with a goal scored by midfielder Claudio Marchisio followed by England who equalized with striker Daniel Sturridge scoring before the Italians scored a goal by striker Mario Balotelli that proved to be the turning point & the last time both sides had met at the Euros was in 2012 where Italy won the quarterfinal match against the English on penalties) at Wembley Stadium in London on Monday morning New Zealand time to decide who will become the new European Champion (Well, who is it going to be? Whether it's the Italians to party like it's 1968 (Forza Italia) or will football be coming home for the English after 55 long years of anguish in major football tournaments (Come on England).
So that is my 432nd blog of the year 2021 (MMXXI) & my 52nd of this year.
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