And Italy, despite winning 2-1 in extra time to advance past Austria, will have plenty to learn.
Austria came into their Wembley round-of-16 game as underdogs after a group stage that saw them beat the team they were expected to in North Macedonia, lose to the team that was expected to beat them in Netherlands and beat the team that was, supposedly, close to their level, in a de facto playoff for second place against Ukraine.
Italy still created chances in the first half — Ciro Immobile hit the post, Leonardo Spinazzola had a couple dazzling runs followed by poor finishes, Nicolo’ Barella forced a good kick save from Daniel Bachmann — but Austria never looked fazed.
The front three — who, as a group, had an off-night — ended up getting the ball that little bit later, losing the half-step of space that sometimes is all the difference between a beaten man or an assist.
Francesco Acerbi did well to resist his array of feints and shimmies, reacting but not fully biting and never quite going away, and it ended with a scraping diagonal off the mark.
Still, the tide didn’t turn and, in fact, Pessina nearly gave away a penalty after pulling down Stefan Lainer: saved by VAR, again, since Lainer was apparently offside.
And the fact that, with a few minutes to go in the 90, they had beaten their 47 year old record for the longest run without conceding a goal wasn’t going to be much consolation, if they didn’t fix things.
Mancini had turned to Andrea Belotti, aka “Il Gallo” or the “Rooster” and Federico Chiesa, the footballing blue blood, whose dad, Enrico, is one of Italy’s all-time greats.
Five minutes into extra time a dangerous ball from Spinazzola, reliable and dangerous like in his previous starts, found Chiesa at the far post.
Unlike Italy teams of the past, they pushed on, knowing that, at 1-0, it’s better to try and score a second, than try and concede the equaliser.
A vicious shot from substitute Louis Schaub forced an excellent save from Donnarumma and another sub, Sasa Kalajdzic, pulled one back when he snuck in at the near post, twisted his 6-foot-5 frame into the sort of position you’d expect to see from a contortionist at Cirque de Soleil and squeezed a header past Jorginho and Donnarumma from an improbable angle.
As Acerbi put it after the game: “We got so much praise after the group stages, that unconsciously maybe it affected us.