England vs Italy

Molineux Stadium plays host to a mouth-watering UEFA Nations League encounter between Euro 2020 finalists England and Italy.

After an underwhelming 1-0 defeat to Hungary in their Group A3 curtain-raiser, England were fortunate to hold Germany to a 1-1 draw last time out, courtesy of Harry Kane’s late penalty. The Nations League has not been kind to England of late, as they’ve only won one of their last five outings in the competition (D1, L3), failing to score on three occasions. Still waiting for their first triumph in this season’s Nations League, the ‘Three Lions’ are keen to avenge a heartbreaking penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final. However, Gareth Southgate’s men are winless in their last four meetings with ‘Gli Azzurri’ (D3, L1 – 90mins), three of which featured the identical 1-1 scoreline.

In the meantime, Italy kickstarted their 2022/23 Nations League journey with a 2-1 home win over Hungary last time out, following a 1-1 draw with Germany in the competition’s opener. Roberto Mancini’s men have now suffered just one defeat in their last 12 Nations League group stage matches (W5, D6). Yet, the abovementioned triumph over Hungary marked Italy’s first success in June, as they succumbed to an embarrassing 3-0 Finalissima defeat to Argentina in their opening summer fixture. Since lifting the Euro 2020 trophy last summer, ‘Gli Azzurri’ have gone unbeaten in all three internationals on hostile turf (W1, D2). With both draws in that sequence yielding an uneventful ‘nil-nil’ scoreline, a tight, low-scoring affair could be on the cards.