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Italy learn valuable Euro lessons in hard-fought knockout win over Austria

Call it a scare. Call it a warning light on your dashboard. Call it a reminder not to believe your own hype. Call it an opportunity to assess what's wrong and what needs fixing.

Call it football. Because, as the cliche goes, every game starts at 0-0, you get a chance to write your own story and what happened before is largely irrelevant. Unless, of course, you learn from your struggles. And Italy, despite winning 2-1 in extra time to advance past Austria, will have plenty to learn.

Austria came into their Wembley round of 16 game as underdogs after a group stage that saw them beat the team they were expected to in North Macedonia, lose to the team that was expected to beat them in Netherlands and beat the team that was, supposedly, close to their level, in a de facto playoff for second place against Ukraine.