Austria’s national team was eliminated from the European Championship after a sensational performance

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The ÖFB team was beaten by Italy 1:2 after extra time at London’s Wembley Stadium after a heroic battle. The goals of the four-time world champions were scored by substitute Federico Chiesa (95th) and Matteo Pessina (105th). Austria’s goal by “Joker” Sasa Kalajdzic (114.) came too late.

The Italians thus remained unbeaten in their 31st consecutive match and will meet the winner of the clash between Belgium and Portugal in the quarterfinals. The ÖFB team, on the other hand, came close to inflicting a defeat on the house-high favorites for the first time since 1960. In the end, coach Franco Foda’s team could only manage a partial victory. After 1,169 minutes, Kalajdzic put an end to the “Squadra Azzurra’s” goal drought.

Austria was unlucky in the second half, however, when a goal by Marko Arnautovic was disallowed by the video referee due to a wafer-thin offside position. The Austrian team thus remained winless in its 14th game in a row against Italy. It was the fifth defeat in a major event. The performance would have deserved more, however, as Austria showed one of its best, if not the best performance under Foda.

Voices on the game:
Franco Foda (ÖFB team boss): “We’re all disappointed, that’s clear after a game like this. Especially after 90 minutes I had the feeling that we can decide the game for us. We played great, never gave up even after the 0:2 and still had chances after the 1:2. You could see that the team believed in itself and the whole of Austria can be very proud of this national team. In the end, we can’t buy anything for it, even though I’ve never received so many compliments after a game. In the end, we were eliminated.”

David Alaba (Austria captain): “It’s really not easy to put it into words right now. We can be proud of ourselves, Austria can be proud of us as well. At the end of the day, we were not rewarded for this performance, this complete final round. That is very bitter. If you look at the game today, that hurts a lot.”

Roberto Mancini (Italy team manager): “We deserved to win, although it was a difficult game. We were tired at the end and therefore had problems. This game was probably harder than the next game in the quarterfinals.”