We had ourselves quite an evening of UEFA Nations League football. From euphoria at the San Siro and consistent Spanish omnipotence in Prague to the coronation of an English star at Wembley.<\/p>\n
Here are my takeaways from Thursday\u2019s action in the Nations League:<\/p>\n
(Photo by Antonino Lagana – FIGC\/FIGC via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n It was an incredibly important victory for Italy. Not perfect. Not beautiful. In fact, there were many mistakes, including another awful error from Gianluigi Donnarumma and a missed penalty from one of the Esposito brothers. But none of that will matter because, in the end, under the skies of Milan and the iconic San Siro, Italy came out victorious thanks to a trait they know too well: passion and a will to get the job done.<\/p>\n There will of course be bigger evenings and nothing will heal the wounds of missing a third straight World Cup, but on a night where Roberto Mancini\u2019s Azzurri wanted to make a statement against the mighty France, it ended with a smile on the faces of all Italians with a 3-1 victory thanks to grit and hunger.<\/p>\n It was a night of desire as opposed to substance as Italy relinquished possession but not control. Mancini\u2019s decision to bring on the Inter stalwart Federico Dimarco for Monza\u2019s Nicol\u00f2 Cambiaghi in the 62nd minute proved to be a masterstroke as it was his assist that provided the goal for Davide Frattesi. Another penalty was added and this time, Pio Esposito made it 3-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n Italy now sits atop of its group with a hope of getting something over Belgium in order to secure a place in the quarterfinals. France just needs a point, so despite the loss, Zinedine Zidane knows it sits in a good place as it gets ready for T\u00fcrkiye.\u00a0<\/p>\n But tonight was about Italian poetry and, once again, Azurri rejoiced. It\u2019s been a long time since we have seen that happen.<\/p>\n (Photo by Nigel French\/Sportsphoto\/Allstar via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n The World Cup champions took care of business against Czechia thanks to a penalty from Alex Baena (one of my favorite players right now in Europe) and a stoppage-time second goal from Marc Pubill, both who play for Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid. That\u2019s now 43 matches without a loss and 12 straight victories. A record so impressive, I am beginning to feel numb about Spanish results. I almost expect this side to win, no matter the outcome.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t, however, a perfect painting from Luis de la Fuente\u2019s side as a 1-0 lead stood throughout until the 96th minute. But then again, not all of them are going to be masterpieces and teams like Czechia will aim to make it sticky for a team who likes to play with the ball in an aesthetic rhythm.\u00a0<\/p>\n This was also a match without Lamine Yamal, Mikel Oyarzabal and the perennial leader, Rodri. Pedri, the team\u2019s architect, didn\u2019t even come on until the 76th minute. So we can see from tonight that it was a rotated side looking to keep the train moving against a weaker opponent.<\/p>\n And the table? Spain leads with a perfect 15 points from five matches, five wins, 13 goals scored and five conceded. What awaits now is a delicious battle at the Metropolitano as England visits the Spanish capital on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n The host is the favorite, clearly, but I think if England is able to minimize its mistakes, it can maybe take something from the match. But asking an opponent to be perfect against Spain is the equivalent of swimming in an ocean during a storm. At some point, no matter how hard you fight, you will find yourself fighting against an overwhelming force that won\u2019t let you breathe.<\/p>\n But if there\u2019s a team that could maybe disrupt the artistry, as we saw in the last window, it\u2019s England. It should be a fantastic match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY We had ourselves quite an evening of UEFA Nations League football. From euphoria at the San Siro and consistent Spanish omnipotence in Prague to the coronation of an English star at Wembley. Here are my takeaways from Thursday\u2019s action in the Nations League: (Photo by Antonino Lagana – FIGC\/FIGC via Getty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}