Mattia Zaccagni speaks after scoring v Croatia: “A beautiful evening” | OneFootball

Italy’s hero Mattia Zaccagni has now spoken up after the Azzurri’s dramatic 1-1 draw against Croatia in EURO 2024, as they managed to go through to the next round of the competition.

Italy went behind in dramatic circumstances. Luka Modric had a penalty saved by Gigio Donnarumma but seconds later, he put one past the Azzurri goalkeeper to hand Croatia the lead. When hope was fading away in stoppage time for Italy, Mattia Zaccagni came up with a huge goal in the 98th minute to take Italy through to the next round.

Italy now finish second and Croatia have only a slim hope of going through. After the game, the Lazio man spoke to RAI (via TMW) about the game and the evening.

He said: “Immense satisfaction, I’m excited, it’s a beautiful evening. It was important to draw it to qualify as second. We always suffer both on the bench and on the pitch , we did well to stay in the game with a great second half. We deserved this draw. The coach did well to create this group, we will try to repay him on the pitch.”

Zaccagni’s impact from the bench could well be a memorable moment for Italy in recent history. He had never scored for the side before and his only goal has proved to be huge.

Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN