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Donadoni: Is luck on his side?
I pitied the poor Italian fans trying to work out the permutations before this game.
While in a worse position in the group, the French supporters at least knew that to progress, they had to win against the Italians and then hope Romania drew or lost to Holland in the other group game.
But the Italian situation was a lot more baffling - they could draw and still go through if the Romanians lost.
There were numerous permutations for Italy to progress, depending whether it was either a score-draw or goalless draw in this re-run of the 2006 World Cup final and Euro 2000 final.
A score-draw would mean Italy progressing as they had scored more goals in the games between the three teams.
But a goalless draw brought a mine-field of possible scenarios, the most puzzling of which was the 'co-efficient' situation, which would come into play if Italy and France drew 0-0 and Romania lost 3-0 to the Dutch.
Faced with these baffling statistics, I'm sure the Italian fans choose to have a few wines and to keep it simple - cheer their boys on to win.
And it seemed as if the omens were on the side of the world champions, dressed in white in the Zurich rain.
Shock news
First came the shock news before kick-off that France's record cap Lillian Thuram was not playing, allegedly ruling himself out because he was not mentally right for the game.
His replacement, Eric Abidal made a mistake in the fourth minute which almost let Luca Toni in, but the big hitman shot wide from the edge of the box.
At the other end, Franck Ribery had a couple of shots on goal before having to depart after injuring himself in a challenge on Gianluca Zambrotta.
It seemed France's best player had damaged his Achilles tendon and was stretchered off in agony to be replaced by Samir Nasri.
It got even worse for Les Bleus when Abidal was deservedly sent off for a challenge on Toni in the box.
Andrea Pirlo scored the subsequent penalty on 25 minutes and the French seemed in disarray as substitute Nasri was himself replaced by Jean-Alain Boumsong after just 16 minutes on the pitch.
Toni could then have put the world champions out of sight but missed several half-chances, while Fabio Grosso hit the post.
At half-time, the Romanians had not broken Holland down in the other game - despite nine Dutch changes - so luck definitely seemed on the Italian side with just 45 minutes to go.
Massive favour
And it just got better as the Dutch did them a massive favour through Klaas Jan Huntelaar's goal on 54 minutes.
A massive roar went around the stadium as news of the Dutch goal came filtering through. It meant the Italians could draw against the French and still go though.
Would they make the great escape following their thrashing at the hands of the Dutch in their first game?
They certainly did as luck favoured them again - Daniele De Rossi's long-range effort was going wide before deflecting off Thierry Henry's foot and into the French goal on 62 minutes.
Then it got even better as Robin van Persie added a second for the Dutch on 87 minutes to put the issue beyond doubt and set up an Italian quarter-final against Spain on Sunday.
But on a slight down note, Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso both received bookings, which mean the pair will be missing against Spain.
So, while Italian heads would have been hurting before the game trying to work out all the permutations, I'm sure they'll be aching now as they celebrate a famous win.
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