As he counted down the final agonising seconds, Luka Modric was biting down on his chequered shirt in his mouth as he willed his team-mates to hold onto their 1-0 lead over Italy.
Victory looked certain but the Croatia midfielder’s jersey was not the only thing turned inside out in the 98th minute of the game in Leipzig.
In one of the most epic moments of the tournament, Riccardo Calafiori, making just his fourth international start, created a goal that no centre-back should be able to.
The Bologna defender, 22, carried the ball from his own third, played a one-two with his midfielder, drove another 20 yards to split the midfield and sprayed the ball wide to Mattia Zaccagni to curl home the equaliser.
Calafiori’s overall performances in the group stage, and Italy’s dismal display in the last 16 against Switzerland without him, showed why Mikel Arteta is keen to bring him to Arsenal.
It would be doing Calafiori’s season at Bologna a disservice to call him a tournament buy. The defender was key to Thiago Motta securing Champions League football for the first time in 60 years, but he only made his Italy debut in last month’s warm-up game against Turkey.
But from the early minutes of the group opener against Albania, playing on the left of a back three, it was clear Calafiori is not overawed.
While Luciano Spalletti’s attackers were waiting on someone else to take the game to the opposition, Calafiori was invariably the player who added impetus to attacks from deep.
In the first half he widened to receive the ball from Jorginho — potentially his future team-mate at the Emirates — to attract pressure from the Albanians and stepped into the game, pulling players out of their position and creating a shooting opportunity at the edge of the box.
That ability to carry the ball is valuable for possession-dominant teams who face low blocks regularly.
His profile has caught the attention of Arsenal because he is left-sided, comfortable in possession and flexible in that he can play centre-back in a three or four — or even left-back.
His role for Italy, albeit in a wing-back system, saw him receive the ball in similar positions to what a left-back in a back four would experience.
Arteta has used Oleksandr Zinchenko as an inverted full-back but preferred Poland centre-back Jakub Kiwior to the Ukrainian towards the end of the season.
It gave Arsenal more security defensively as Zinchenko’s lapses in concentration had begun to mount, but Kiwior is limited on the ball and not comfortable coming into the middle of the pitch.
Calafiori is no stranger to doing so, often moving into a midfield position from goal kicks at Bologna, while for Italy he often tucked inside to open up his options.
Here, he declined the easy option to go backwards under pressure, feigning to go inside and playing the ball wide. He used his intuition and stayed in a central midfield area, playing a neat combination before spotting the space and being played in behind the defence with a ball down the line.
There were times when his eagerness to be the protagonist saw him overrun the ball and give away a counter-attacking opportunity.
Picking and choosing his moments is something he has to improve on but this is a young defender with only two full seasons under his belt, having moved from Roma to Genoa to Basel before he made his breakthrough.
He is an aggressive passer who can play through the lines on both sides. It is a limitation of Gabriel Magalhaes, who partners William Saliba at centre-back for Arsenal, and Calafiori’s addition would upgrade that aspect of their play in certain games.
Against Spain, he looked to hit the feet of Gianluca Scamacca whenever he could, at times disguising the ball out wide by turning his hips to whip the ball forward.
The left-back position at Arsenal is the one position they have yet to perfect in defence. Zinchenko had a great debut season and elevated Arsenal as a passing team but his form dipped significantly and he has struggled with injuries.
Kiwior is a square peg in a round hole, Jurrien Timber can play that side but is a centre-back and right-back before he is a left-back, as is Takehiro Tomiyasu. There are a lot of existing options but even Kieran Tierney, the most conventional left-back of all, is aware that it is likely he will leave the club.
The trend of four athletic, nominal centre-backs has seen Nathan Ake and Josko Gvardiol excel at Manchester City but Kiwior is not at that level yet.
If Arteta wants to continue with that profile then Calafiori ticks a lot of boxes. He is a tall (6ft 2in), aggressive one-v-one defender and looks comfortable in big spaces.
Against Albania, he was able to hold a high line as he was alert to runs in behind, mirroring the movement of the striker before sprinting out wide to defend a one-on-one. He forced the attacker back, winning the tackle and then sprinted back into his defensive slot to block the next cross, which captured his intensity.
Playing for elite teams in the modern game demands that defenders are comfortable feeling exposed and, below, he showed his agility by turning quickly and reading the attempted knockdown by the Albania strike duo.
Calafiori likes to get touch tight but he showed calmness when defending against breaks.
When Spain broke through midfield, he could have stepped out but he knew Alvaro Morata wanted to run into the gap between him and Alessandro Bastoni, so he bided his time before cutting off the angle and then intercepted the through ball.
Where he was caught out several times across each game, however, was in being overly aggressive.
Against Croatia, he pushed out into a position that he did not have to as his midfielders were close enough to the player receiving the ball. But he steamed out and chased the ball back to Modric at full speed, which saw the midfielder easily skip past him and clip a pass into the area Calafiori had vacated.
Calafiori has the physical attributes to match players as he is quick across the ground and has long levers which help him win the ball from unconventional angles.
But he can overcommit when closing down as happened with Lamine Yamal. The 16-year-old winger skipped past him when he dived in, and Croatia did the same below when he was easily done by a one-two.
Calafiori may wear long hair and a hair band but he is not quite a fully paid-up member of Paolo Maldini’s ‘If I have to make a tackle I have already made a mistake’ club.
He is a front-foot, modern-day defender who looks custom-made for the latest innovation of the four centre-back defence.
(Top photo: Claudio Villa/Getty Images for FIGC)
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