Avanti Azzuri

That was big. Italy was much better than the world #1 Belgians, although a stupid and totally unnecessary foul gave Belgium the penalty that let them keep it close. I thought the Italians were the best in the group stage, and I don’t see any of the teams that are left beating them now.

Speaking of penalties, the Swiss did a fantastic job of playing catenaccio for 45 minutes to take the game to penalties after a dubious red card took them down to 10 men against Spain. But they promptly choked, missing three in a row to go out in an unexpectedly respectable performance against a better Spanish team.