The "Young Italy" greets with a victory: also beat Greece
Silvio Baldini’s “Young Italy” closes its short parabola with two wins out of two. After the success over Luxembourg, the Azzurri of the interim coach pick up their second consecutive 1-0 win in Crete by beating the more emblazoned Greece. And, as in the previous match, almost exclusively very young and inexperienced players are seen on the field, and a goal by Pio Esposito is the decider.
Against a Greece that in 2026 still has not won a single match, creating the first danger is Ekhator after less than five minutes. Italy believes in it and goes close to the lead also with Pisilli, before finding it on 18′ with the “usual” Esposito: the Inter forward collects Ekhator’s own assist and pierces the Hellenic goalkeeper Vlachodimos also taking advantage of a decisive deflection by Hatzidiakos.
Greece’s response is entrusted to Douvikas, a well-known face of Serie A, but the Como striker is bricked first by Comuzzo and then by Chiarodia. Tzolis also timidly tries to make himself dangerous, but before halftime it is the Azzurri who go closest to doubling the score with Koleosho and then the always inspired Esposito. The tendency of the match does not change even after the interval, with Koleosho hitting the crossbar in the opening minutes.
Nothing changes even after the round of substitutions launched by the two coaches. Pisilli again comes close to a double, then the long-awaited Reggiani leaves Italy in ten less than a quarter of an hour after his entrance on the field for a hold on Douvikas thrown to the net. Even numerical inferiority did not take away the victory from the Azzurri, who trembled at Zaferis’ post late in the game but once again went close to scoring after a nice initiative by Favasuli.
It is worth mentioning that Douvikas himself had declared on the eve of the match that he had a big dream for this challenge: to succeed in scoring on Donnarumma. The Manchester City goalkeeper, the only true veteran of this experimental national team with 81 appearances in the Azzurro, responded in the best possible way, shoring up the Italian goal for the entire match and contributing decisively to the second consecutive victory.
Thus Baldini’s brief interlude at the helm of the senior national team ended in the best possible way. The coach from Canevara, called to ferry the Azzurri after Gennaro Gattuso’s resignation in the aftermath of the Zenica disaster – which certified Italy’s third consecutive absence from the World Cup – had from the outset made his goals clear with brutal honesty: “To coach Italy you need a certain curriculum, and today I don’t have it. I’m certainly not a peacock: I’m aiming for the Under-21 European Championship and the Olympics.” Words respected in deeds, with a squad with an average age of just over 20 years old built around the core of his Under 21 team.
Baldini’s mission was also to send important signals in the future, working towards next summer’s Under 21 European Championship, which will award three places for the 2028 Olympic Games. In this sense, the convocations had already caused debate: Greece had initially threatened to cancel the friendly because of the too many Under 21s in the squad, a controversy that was later withdrawn after the words of head of delegation Giancarlo Antognoni, who had called the Azzurri’s “the best possible national team at this moment for motivation and perspective.” The field, in the end, proved both of them right.
With this second consecutive success, the “Young Italy” hands over to the next coach – whose appointment will depend on the outcome of the federal elections – a group of growing talent and two positive results to build on. Baldini now returns to the helm of the Under 21, bringing with him the satisfaction of having achieved the goal with full merit and, above all, the certainty that the future of Italian soccer has a young and promising face.
