Bangkok Post – Italy recovers from early shock and beats Albania

DORTMUND, Germany: Defending champions Italy recovered from the shock of conceding to Albania after 23 seconds to begin their Euro 2024 campaign with a 2-1 victory on Saturday in front of a mostly crowd. Albanian.

Nedim Bajrami pounced on Federico Dimarco’s poor throw-in to smash the ball past Gianluigi Donnarumma to score the fastest goal in European Championship history.

Italy equalized in the 11th minute thanks to a towering header from Alessandro Bastoni and Nicolo Barella gave them the lead five minutes later, meeting a poor clearance with a superb strike from the edge of the area.

Although Italy controlled the game after Bajrami’s goal, they created few clear-cut chances in the second half and coach Luciano Spalletti showed frustration as his team failed to score a kill. the match, but they held on to return to a tie with Spain at the top of Group B. .