Donnarumma saves two penalties in shoot-out to help Azzurri win Euro title

Italy inflicted more penalty heartache on England to win Sunday’s Euro 2020 final 3-2 in a shoot-out, Bukayo Saka missing the decisive kick to deny the hosts after the game at Wembley had ended in a draining 1-1 draw through extra time.

Saka’s kick was repelled by Gianluigi Donnarumma to give Italy the Henri Delaunay trophy for the second time at the end of a shoot-out in which England scored their first two penalties but then saw Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho also fail.

Jorginho could have won it for Italy only for his penalty to be saved by Jordan Pickford, giving renewed hope to the England support who had earlier created a febrile atmosphere with their team looking set to run away with this final.

The nerve-shredding climax seemed unlikely given the way the match began, with Luke Shaw scoring for Gareth Southgate’s England after just one minute and 57 seconds, the fastest goal ever in a European Championship final stunning a team who arrived here on a record 33-match unbeaten run.

Italy, though, had most of the possession after falling behind and ultimately deserved their equaliser when it came midway through the second half through Leonardo Bonucci.

With no further scoring, this was the first European Championship final to be decided on penalties since 1976.

It is more penalty agony for England, whose list of previous shoot-out exits included losing to Italy at Euro 2012 as well as in the Euro 96 semi-finals against Germany when Southgate missed the crucial kick.

While their 55-year wait to win another major international title goes on, Italy’s own particular half-century of hurt is over.

They have won four World Cups but their sole European Championship triumph before this dated back to 1968.

They had lost two European Championship finals in little over two decades, with the agony of losing to France via a golden goal in Rotterdam in 2000 and then being torn apart by Spain in 2012, going down 4-0 in Kiev.

Italy had been arguably the team of the tournament heading into the final, sweeping through the group stage with a perfect record before knocking out Austria, top-ranked Belgium and Spain to reach the final.

Revitalised since Mancini took over after their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the Azzurri were on a remarkable 33-match unbeaten run before the final.

Southgate has revolutionised English football since taking charge in 2016, leading his team to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, where they were beaten by Croatia but they fell just short at Wembley.