Armenia didn’t take the chances and was punished, captain Henrikh Mkhitaryan said after his team’s 1-3 loss to Italy in Euro 2020 qualifier.
“We were very aggressive, that’s why we scored the goal, but after that we somewhat retreated. We missed a goal, and there was a red card,” he told reporters after the match.
“But in the second half the guys fought till the end and we showed we can play against Italy even with ten men. We had changes to score a goal, but we didn’t succeed. It’s football. That’s why we were punished,” Mkhitaryan said.
Italy required two late goals to secure a 3-1 win over 10-man Armenia on Thursday.
Armenia took the initiative early on with Aleksandre Karapetyan finishing off a counterattack that began with an Italian defensive lapse.
Karapetyan was then sent off in first-half added time for picking up a second yellow card.
The Italy squad failed to produce any serious chances in the second half when it held a man advantage — until substitute Lorenzo Pellegrini broke the deadlock in the 77th.
Andrea Belotti then added another to go with his first-half equalizer.
