Ten-man France finally went out in Zurich as Italy advanced to the quarter finals. Arsenal target, Samir Nasri entered early to replace the injured Franck Ribery. He had little time to influence the game when, in the 25th minute, Eric Abidal brought down Luca Toni inside the area.
Abidal was shown a straight red and Pirlo put the 2006 world cup winners in front from the spot. Raymond Domenech opted to take off substitute Nasri and replace him with Alan “The Willy” Boumsong.
Italy were still made to suffer before Daniele De Rossi’s 62nd minute free-kick took a deflection off Thierry Henry and found the back of the net.
The game completed a terrible tournament for Les Bleus. One can only hope Nasri lack of game time will have kept him out of the European spotlight and allow Wenger to capture the young french man’s signature.