Roberto Mancini’s Italy held by Ukraine in 1-1 draw

A good performance in the first-half by Italy wasn’t enough for them to secure a win as they were eventually held 1-1 by Ukraine in an international friendly on Wednesday. As many as eight changes were made to the squad which had gone down 0-1 to Portugal and despite taking the lead, Roberto Mancini’s side failed to get the win.

In the 43rd minute, the game was stopped and a minute’s applause followed in memory of the 43 lives which were claimed on August 14 when the motorway bridge collapsed.

Also read: Nations League: Andre Silva leads Ronaldo-less Portugal to victory against Italy

A lot of chances were created by the attacking trio of Federico Bernardeschi, Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Chiesa but they failed to break the deadlock before the break and it wasn’t until the 55th minute that the first goal was scored.

Bernardeschi fired in a low shot past Ukrainian stopper Andriy Pyatov to which he got a hand but the ball just bounced over his hand and went into the net.

But Ukraine found an equaliser through Ruslan Malinovskyi in a space of seven minutes with another low shot in the 62nd minute.

“We deserved to score a couple of goals tonight, we have to improve on this aspect and continue on this path,” Mancini, as quoted by Reuters, said.
“We need to be more incisive.”

Ukraine could have added another in the next few minutes with Malinovskyi’s curling free-kick hitting the crossbar.

Image credit- Football Highlights