Resurgent England renew rivalry with Italy side searching for identity under Spalletti

The best two teams from the last European championship on Tuesday evening renew acquaintances at the venue where, at their last tumultuous London meeting, it needed penalties to separate them.

To glance back at the compelling, ebb-and-flow final of Euro 2020 – Covid-19 meant it was staged in 2021 – is to remember how close the outcome was, but also to appreciate that in some ways defeat was taken more gently by England than victory was by Italy.

For the home team at Wembley, the same manager who oversaw the silver medal at the Euros is still in charge. Gareth Southgate vividly remembers comforting the young players who had not converted their spot-kicks in that July 2021 shoot-out, and stores the episode among a series of tournament near-misses.

Southgate is still in the post because he has closed in on more podium finishes than any England manager in history. Besides the runners-up placing at those Euros, there was a semi-final at the 2018 World Cup, and going within a missed Harry Kane penalty of taking a 2022 World Cup quarter-final against France into extra time.

It is now more than a decade since Southgate took over the England under-21s, and approaching seven years since he was promoted, via a short spell as interim manager of the seniors, to the main job.

In the same period, Italy have had four different head coaches, and a rollercoaster of ups and downs. They have failed to reach the finals of two successive World Cup tournaments. Yet they still call themselves reigning European champions, defenders of a title to be contested next summer in Germany.

How much resemblance, man for man, the team picked tonight by Luciano Spalletti, who took over as head coach from Roberto Mancini in August, bears to the victorious