Federico Dimarco took his time on the sideline, wiping dry the football, glancing from left to right, surveying his options for the throw-in. The Italy left back wanted to make sure he would get it right. Then, he confidently and accurately picked out his desired target, finding a teammate and allowing his nation to go on the attack.
This was in the sixth minute of Italy’s Euro 2024 opener against Albania. Five minutes earlier, he had done none of that . Five minutes earlier, the 26-year-old had single-handedly.
.. No, hang on, no.
Five minutes earlier, very much with two hands, he had put his team behind – just 23 seconds into their European title defence . It was the perfect mistake: a throw-in too shallow for Alessandro Bastoni, who plays with Dimarco at Inter Milan, but who was certainly not on the same page as his clubmate. The centre back had no idea whether to stay or go, to stick or twist.
And the ball, complacently hurled into the Italy box by Dimarco, bounced directly into the path of the alert Nedim Bajrami. Still, there was work to do, and the Albania striker carried it out coldly. Nudging the ball to his right – Bastoni’s left – he created space that the Italian defender simply could not consume quickly enough.
Then Bajrami pistoned his right foot, jettisoning the ball abruptly past Gianluigi Donnarumma. Twenty-three seconds earlier in European Championship game time, Donnarumma was pulling off the save that sealed European glory for Italy in London, in .
