Italy moved into first place in their European Under-21 qualifying group with a hard-fought 2-0 win away to Turkey.
Going into Thursday's Group 7 qualification match just below table-topping Turkey, Ciro Ferrara’s Azzurrini faced a difficult test to maintain their 100 per cent record in the group.
Italy moved into first place in their European Under-21 qualifying group with a hard-fought 2-0 win away to Turkey.
Going into Thursday's Group 7 qualification match just below table-topping Turkey, Ciro Ferrara’s Azzurrini faced a difficult test to maintain their 100 per cent record in the group.
Thanks to Mattia Destro’s goals either end of a frantic second half though, the team leave the Kasımpasa Stadium in Istanbul with their fourth win from four in the qualification stages for 2013’s edition of the tournament.
After a goalless first half in which Turkey had the stronger run of the play, Italy opened the scoring just four minutes into the second 45 as Alberto Paloschi’s excellent play set up Destro.
The game was then peppered with cards as English official Stuart Atwell was kept busy, in total issuing nine yellow cards, whilst Turkey’s Sefa Yilmaz picked up a red.
Siena man Destro then capped a fine individual display with a well-taken second goal on 90 minutes to secure the win.
Turkey: Kahveci; Corekci, Aziz, Kaya (Akca 47), Nizam (Aygunes 62); Potuk, Uysal; Yilmaz, Ozcal (Colak 77), Cek; Demir
Italy: Bardi; Donati, Caldirola, Capuano, Crescenzi; Saponara (Crimi 60), Marrone (Ragusa 77), Rossi, Florenzi; Paloschi (Bertolacci 82), Destro