Manuel Locatelli bagged a brace of goals for the first time in his career as imperious Italy defeated Switzerland 3-0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Thursday (NZ time) to become the first side into the last-16 of the European Championship.
Midfielder Locatelli, 23, opened the scoring with a simple tap-in following Sassuolo team mate Domenico Berardi's excellent run down the right wing, before he rifled a shot into the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the box early in the second half.
Ciro Immobile added a late third to secure back-to-back 3-0 wins for Italy in the tournament, which extends their unbeaten run to 29 games, the last 10 of which have been victories where they have scored 31 goals and conceded none.
Italy lead Group A with six points after two rounds of matches and are ahead of Wales (four), Switzerland (one) and Turkey (zero). They can seal top spot with a draw in their final pool game against Wales on Monday (NZ time).
Wales moved a big step closer to qualifying for the knockout stages of the European Championship after Aaron Ramsey and Connor Roberts scored in a 2-0 win over Turkey in their second Group A match at Baku's Olympic Stadium on Thursday (NZ time).
Ramsey failed to convert two chances early in the first half but scored just before halftime when he made a run through the middle to chest down Gareth Bale's perfect ball over the defence and slip it past the goalkeeper.
Wales could have doubled the lead at the hour mark when Bale was tripped by Zeki Celik at the edge of the box and awarded a penalty, but the Welsh skipper skied his effort after a stuttering run up.
Wales scored right at the death in injury time when a corner was played short and Connor Roberts was on hand to divert a Bale pass past goalkeeper Ugurcan Cakir to seal the victory.
Earlier, a goal in first-half stoppage time by Aleksei Miranchuk got Russia's campaign back on track as they beat Finland 1-0 in Group B.
Joel Pohjanpalo thought he had given the Finns the lead in the fifth minute but his powerful header was ruled out for offside after a VAR review, and the rest of the first half was played at a high tempo.
With both sides committing players forward in attack, Miranchuk popped up just before the break to curl in a superb left-footed effort to put his side in front.
The Finns, who beat Denmark 1-0 at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen on Saturday following Christian Eriksen's on-field collapse, threw everything they had at their neighbours but struggled to hit the target as the Russians held on to win.
The result moves Stanislav Cherchesov's side up to second in the standings on three points, ahead of Finland thanks to the head-to-head result. Belgium, who beat Russia 3-0 in their opener, top the group ahead of their game against Denmark on Friday (NZ time).
Reuters
