Italy and Albania faced off in the first match of Group B at the European Football Championship held in Germany.
The match, played at Signal Iduna Park, was managed by German Football Association’s Felix Zweier, assisted by Stephan Rupp and Marco Aschmüller.
Defending European champions Italy came from behind to win 2-1 and finish the first week with three points. Italy’s winning goals came from Alessandro Bastoni in the 11th minute and Nicolò Barella in the 16th minute. Albania’s only goal was scored by Nedim Bajrami after 23 seconds.
Meanwhile, Ray Manaj, who plays for Sivasspor, one of the Albanian Super League teams, came on in the 77th minute of the match to replace Armando Broja, while Ernesto Muci, who plays for Besiktas, came on at the start of the match to replace Nedim Bajrami.
The fastest goal record was broken
At the same time, the record for the fastest goal in an Italy-Albania match was broken: 23 seconds into the game, Nedim Bajrami took advantage of a short throw-in by Italian defender Di Marco and smashed the ball into the goal from the right diagonal of the penalty area to give his team the lead.
The goal was also the fastest goal in the history of the European Football Championships – the previous record was held by Russian footballer Dmitri Kirichenko, who scored after 68 seconds in Russia’s match against Greece at EURO 2004.
