Youthful Italy side squeeze past Greece in Athens friendly

DPASun, June 7, 2026 at 10:40 PM UTC·2 min read

Italy beat Greece 1-0 in an international friendly in Athens as a young side made it two wins from two following the nation's latest failure to qualify for the World Cup.

Elimination in the qualifying play-offs in March meant the end of Gennaro Gattuso's reign after Italy were condemned to miss out on a third consecutive finals.

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Under-21 coach Silvio Baldini stepped in on a temporary basis and angered the Greek camp last month by promising only to select players aged 21 or under for the game and, despite threats from the home side to cancel the fixture, the stand-in boss was true to his word.

Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was the only player in the squad over the age of 22 as Baldini went with players familiar to him from his work with the under-21 team, to which he will return following the second of his two matches in caretaker charge. Italy hope to appoint a new permanent coach in the coming weeks.

One of those players, albeit at the more experienced end of the scale, was Pio Esposito – the striker fresh from scoring 10 goals for Inter Milan in all competitions last season – and he struck the only goal after 18 minutes.

Jeff Ekhator picked up the ball out near the left touchline and looked up to see Esposito in space in the penalty area. The Inter striker took a touch on the turn and prodded a shot goalwards that took a deflection off a defender and sneaked into the bottom corner for his fifth international goal.

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Luca Koleosho whacked the crossbar at the far post from barely two yards out at the start of the second half, the player who has been on loan at Paris FC from Burnley contriving to miss spectacularly from Luca Lipani’s cross.

Italy were reduced to 10 men midway through the half when Luca Reggiani was dismissed on his international debut, shown a straight red card for holding onto Tasos Douvikas and deemed to have denied a goalscoring opportunity.

Greece came as close as they had come five minutes from the end when Christos Zafeiris thundered a low effort against the post with Donnarumma beaten. It was the only time all night they had truly threatened the Italy goal as they failed to make the most of facing a lineup so inexperienced at international level.

Odysseas Vlachodimos in the Greece goal produced an impressive save to keep out Costantino Favasuli in the closing stages as Italy sought the second goal their performance probably warranted.