Football

Casadei's late penalty sees Italy through to last eight

June 1, 2023 11:12 am

[Source: FIFA World Cup/Twitter]

Cesare Casadei’s late penalty helped Italy edge England 2-1 to reach the FIFA U-20 World Cup Argentina 2023™ quarter-finals.

Tommaso Baldanzi opened the scoring for the Italians when he latched onto the end of a delightful outside-of-the-foot through pass from Giuseppe Ambrosino, catching England keeper Matthew Cox off guard with a quick shot.

Alfie Devine equalised for the Three Lions a few minutes after he had hit the crossbar.

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Dane Scarlett sent in a cross with pace and Devine showed superb technical skill to turn it in straight out of the air with the inside of his right boot.

The second half was far more scrappy than the first with chances few and far between, so it was no surprise that the decider was a penalty kick. After a lengthy VAR review, England defender Jarell Quansah was adjudged to have handled current tournament top scorer Casadei’s shot, and the Italian made no mistake from the resulting spot-kick.

Italy will meet Colombia in the quarter-finals in San Juan on Saturday.