<\/p>\n
Pedro’s second-half strike handed Spain a narrow victory over Italy in Wednesday’s international friendly at the Vicente Calderon.<\/p>\n
The Barcelona forward struck the only goal of the game in the 63rd minute in a match that the world champions dominated for long stretches.<\/p>\n
Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque handed Diego Costa his national team debut.<\/p>\n
The Atletico Madrid striker – who coincidentally made his Brazil debut in a friendly against Italy – was included in the starting XI and turned in a solid performance in his club’s stadium, the Vicente Calderon.<\/p>\n
A minute’s silence was observed prior to the game in memory of former Atletico and Spain coach Luis Aragones, who passed away last month.<\/p>\n
Italy, without injured striker Mario Balotelli, were at the mercy of Spain’s long spells of possession.<\/p>\n
However, the Italians almost broke the deadlock in the third minute when Alessio Cerci’s cross flew 10 yards before hitting the far post.<\/p>\n
Spain were fortunate because the ball bounced across the face of the goal and into the path of keeper Iker Casillas, who fell on it to extinguish the threat.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Pedro’s effort from 30 yards was kept out by Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.<\/p>\n
Spain kept Italy in their own half and in midway through the first half, Andres Iniesta warmed the hands of Buffon with a hard drive from just outside the box.<\/p>\n
Italy veteran Andrea Pirlo came on in the second half and showed his class minutes later when he spotted Osvaldo in the box but Jordi Alba made a vital clearance.<\/p>\n
Spain finally broke through in the 63rd minute after a great play from Iniesta and David Silva put pressure on the Italy defence, leaving Pedro to strike a left-footed shot from the heart of the area past Buffon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pedro’s second-half strike handed Spain a narrow victory over Italy in Wednesday’s international friendly at the Vicente Calderon. The Barcelona forward struck the only goal of the game in the 63rd minute in a match that the world champions dominated for long stretches. Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque handed Diego Costa his national team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2459,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457\/revisions\/2459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}