Gianluigi Donnarumma admits Italy ‘gifted’ the first half to England, but assures the team ‘rediscovered ourselves’ after the break, despite the defeat.
The Azzurri went into the break trailing by two goals after Declan Rice bundled over the line from a corner and Harry Kane converted a penalty, awarded for the Giovanni Di Lorenzo handling offence.
Mateo Retegui found the net on his Italy debut, but it was not enough to avoid a 2-1 home defeat in the opening EURO 2024 qualifier.
“When you gift the entire first half to a quality side like England, they will hurt you,” Donnarumma told RAI Sport.
“We need to build on the second half, where we rediscovered ourselves. We showed that we want to keep surprising, we want to get results and we will get them in this qualifying campaign.”
The next Italy match is against Malta on Sunday, while the group is completed by North Macedonia and Ukraine.
The Nazionale are defending champions of Europe, having won the EURO 2020 trophy by beating England at Wembley Stadium in July 2021.
Elsewhere in the group this evening, North Macedonia struggled to get the better of Malta with a 2-1 home victory.
Italy had not lost a single EURO qualifier since the 3-1 to France in 2006 and their last defeat at home in this tournament was 3-2 to Denmark in 1999.