The Azzurri defeated the Belgians to secure the a place in the semifinals of the European competition.

Italy have landed a new record in the Euorpean Championship with Friday night's win over Belgium. The Azzurri defeated the Red Devils via a 2-1 scoreline in a quarter-final clash to book a semi-final date with Spain. 

All the key actions in the encounter practically unfolded in the first half of the clash with Italy having what would have been an opening goal by Leonardo Bonucci being ruled for offside by VAR in the 14th minute. 17 minutes later, Nicolo Barella fired the Azzurri in front with the help of Marco Verratti. Lorenzo Insigne then doubled his side's advantage with a sensational long-range curler right on the stroke of half-time.

Inside the second minute of additional time in the first term, Di Lorenzo's foul on Jeremy Doku gave Roberto Martinez's men the opportunity to save face going into the break. Romelu Lukaku subsequently converted the attempt from the spot to pull one goal for his fourth goal of the tournament. In the second half, the Inter Milan man would have equalized for the Red Devils at one instance but saw the low cross which he would have easily tapped into the next, miss him by milimeters following a slight deflection off Spinnazola's foot.

In the end, no goal was produced as Italy run away with a result that extended their historic unbeaten run under Roberto Mancini to 32 games across all competitions. Including the qualifying rounds, they have won each of their last 15 European Championship matches - a new competition record. On the contrary, Belgium themselves had won 14 consecutive matches before Friday night's defeat.