Starting on Friday, UEFA Euro 2024 has already featured one of the most chaotic moments of the tournament: a surprise goal from Albania over Italy in the first minute of the game.
Just 23 seconds into the game, Albanian midfielder Nedim Bajrami took advantage of a sloppy Italian throw-in to score the first goal of the match and give Albania the lead – and claim the title of fastest goal in Euro history.
In addition to breaking a record, the Albanian goal was a huge blow for the Italians. To contextualize, in the current FIFA RatingsItaly is in ninth place, while Albania is in 66th.
The two teams aren’t exactly rivals, but the Euros tend to bring out the chaos and competitive spirit in everyone. Shortly before the match, a fan interaction video went viral, where an Albanian fan broke a handful of spaghetti in front of a group of Italian fans. An Italian jokingly fell to his knees when he saw this.
Albania fans break spaghetti in front of their Italian counterparts ahead of the nations’ meeting at Euro 2024.
This means war. pic.twitter.com/nYzNkhVsqm
– Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) June 15, 2024
It is symbolic that it took Albania just 23 seconds to bring Italy to its knees. But even after Albania took the spaghetti out of the Italian defence, it didn’t take long for Italy to respond.
Italy scored two goals – one from Alessandro Bastoni in the 11th minute and another from Nicolò Barella in the 16th – to regain the lead as Albania’s defense crumbled like puff pastry.
