Italy

Álvaro Morata’s Euro 2020 campaign then: Spain draws 0-0 with Sweden. Villain. Morata scores early against Poland. Hero. Morata misses a sitter against Poland and Spain draws again. Villain. Morata scores the extra-time winner against Croatia. Hero. Morata only lasts 54 minutes against Switzerland and is benched against Italy. Villain. Morata comes off the bench and scores the equalizer against Italy. Hero. Morata misses the decisive penalty kick in the shootout. Villain. 

MANCHESTER, England - Four teams head to London for the final week of Euro 2020 and as well as promising close battles, the two semifinals present a fascinating clash of football styles and tactical approaches.

While football has its ideologues, who insist that a particular approach is the right way to play the game, the “final four” are proof that there really is no single formula to success.

MUNICH, Germany — Belgium midfielder Kevin De Bruyne said he had played in Friday's Euro 2020 quarterfinal defeat to Italy with a tear in his ankle ligaments.

Manchester City's De Bruyne was a doubt for the game after picking up the injury in the last-16 win over Portugal but said he had been determined to play.

"For me personally it has been four or five weird weeks. But I especially want to thank the medical staff," he said.

Italy is back. The masters of the dark arts who won the 2006 World Cup with defense, grit and hand waving missed the 2018 World Cup, sparking a rethink of the national team. Now Roberto Mancini has Italy two wins away from another major title, with the Azzurri combining a ruthlessly efficient attacking style with Italy’s timeless defense and shithousery. 

Italy keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was busier than he had been in four prior matches in the first half of his team’s Euro 2020 quarterfinal, but it was a Nicolò Barella goal vs Belgium that gave Italy the lead in the first half. The Barella goal was so great it cured Ciro Immobile’s leg, the striker miraculously getting up unharmed after having been seemingly shot in the leg moments earlier.

The Euro 2020 quarterfinal between Belgium and Italy on Friday is full of intrigue. Romelu Lukaku goes up against friends and foes from Serie A. The Italian defense is once again looking like an Italian defense, with Gianluigi Donnarumma taking the torch from Gianluigi Buffon. Thorgan Hazard has stepped out of the shadow of his older brother Eden. Italians are pushing for Jorginho to win the Ballon d’Or. And, of course, we have a coaching rematch from the 2013 FA Cup Final. All of these facets will weigh heavily on our Belgium vs Italy prediction and preview.

The18’s renowned data scientist introduced the team to an API (application programming interface) that gave predictions for games in the European Championship. We naturally took that as a challenge to see if we could predict the outcomes of games better than the algorithm. We’ll show the results from the Round of 16 before sharing our Euro 2020 quarterfinal predictions.

Five of our staff, including Grant the data scientist, took the challenge to outsmart the algorithm. After eight games in the Round of 16, this is what the leaderboard looks like.