Italy’s U21 defeated Cyprus U21 7-1 at the Stadio Teofilo Patini in Castel di Sangro on Tuesday evening.
The away side took the lead in the first half through Pieros Sotiriou but the Italians hit back with first half strikes from Federico Bernardeschi and an own-goal by Emilios Panayiotou to lead at the break.
Italy took total total control of the second half hitting five more past Zannetos Mytidis in the Cyprus goal with Stefano Sturaro, Andrea Belotti, Jacopo Dezi, Samuele Longo and Daniele Rugani getting their names on the score sheet.
Italy dominated the early stages of the game but it was the away side who took a surprise lead on the half hour as a cross from Ioannis Efstathiou found Sotiriou in the box and his header beat Francesco Bardi in the Azzurri goal.
That goal stirred the home side in to action and they hit back with two quick strikes before half time, firstly from a header by Bernardeschi and then by an unfortunate own-goal by Panayiotou as a shot by Davide Zappacosta deflected in off the midfielder.
Ten minutes into the second half Italy extended their lead as a nice move involving Federico Viviani and Domenico Berardi resulted in the ball being played through to Sturaro who slid the ball past Mytidis.
Moments later it was 4-1 as Belotti hit a low right foot shot which found the bottom corner.
Italy hit three more in the space of ten minutes as on 70 minutes Dezi headed in from a corner, followed by Longo’s sublime finish when put through one on one with Mytidis, and Rugani finished off the scoring as a Bernardeschi shot went in off the Juventus man.
The result means the Azzurrini finish as Group 9 winners and now head into the play-off round as they look to qualify for the U-21 European Championships in the Czech Republic in 2015.
