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Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci with the European Championship trophy: "Giorgio and I have been waiting for this moment since 2012"
Photo: Nick Potts / imago images / PA Images
Endgames, especially those that are about the biggest titles in a sport, are surrounded by leaden severity.
Before the kick-off you can see tense faces, and afterwards: tears from the losers, tears from the winners.
Among the winners, Roberto Mancini was the greatest.
In 2018, the year the World Cup was missed in Russia, he became Italy's national coach, he led the team to the European title, the second for Italy after 1968. When the penalty shootout against England was over, Mancini could hardly stop crying.
For a short eternity he was in a deep embrace with his assistant trainer and long-time companion Gianluca Vialli.
Both have experienced a lot together, in 1992 they played side by side for their club Sampdoria for the European Cup at Wembley Stadium in London;
they lost.
Now they celebrated one of the greatest successes in Italy's history, together, at Wembley.
"We cried here once before 30 years ago," said Mancini.
“We've been friends all our lives.
Now we've achieved something incredible together. "
A video shows the touching embrace of two deeply moved men.
And then the grinning Giorgio Chiellini walks through the picture.
For him, this final of the European Football Championship seemed to be a lot of fun.
When the Italians were on their way to London Airport, he shared a photo of himself with the European Cup on social networks.
The title: "It's coming Rome!"
Hours before, when the Italian anthem rang out, this magnificent, pompous song, the national players roared along with it;
But Chiellini seemed to enjoy it.
He sang her lines with his eyes closed, then opened them and smiled.
And then he plowed across the square.
Chiellini finally has his international title
Chiellini will be 37 years old in August, he is an old-school defender, a two-man fighter who spares no one who pulls an opponent off his feet and then offers him a hand with a smile.
Chiellini only has this doggedness in a duel.
Otherwise he looks like someone who has already seen everything and who is no longer thrown off track, no goal conceded, no trophy.
He won a number of national titles with Juventus, but the three biggest games of his career did not end well for him.
In 2012 he lost the European Championship final with Italy against Spain, in 2015 he had to watch injured as Juventus lost to Barcelona in the Champions League final, and in 2017 he was defeated by Real Madrid.
A great player lacked the great title.
Now he has it.
Chiellini's eternal partner, the 34-year-old Leonardo Bonucci, sat in the press conference after the game, he took turns taking a sip from the beer and the coke bottle.
"Giorgio and I have been waiting for this moment since 2012," he said.
2012 was the year in which they crashed together with the Squadra Azzurra in the European Championship final against Spain, the 0: 4 is still the highest defeat in the European Championship history.
"We believed that we could get this title."
Favorite since the group stage
Italy deserves it.
In the group stage, the team played what is perhaps the most impressive offensive football of all European Championship participants, 3-0 against Turkey, 3-0 against Switzerland, 1-0 against Wales.
In the round of 16, the Austria team wrestled in extra time.
And then the Squadra Azzurra successively cleared three of the best teams in the European Championship, Belgium (2-1), Spain (4-2 on penalties) and now England, also after penalties.
The last two games in particular have shown that Italy may not beat every opponent, but never lose.
The last loss is 34 games and is almost three years old.
Mancini is the maker of this title.
Chiellini is his face.
"And after 15 minutes we started playing, playing, playing."
Giorgio Chiellini
The scenes before the penalty shoot-out against Spain, the only team to beat the Italians, went down in the history of this tournament.
Then Chiellini gave Spain's captain Jordi Alba a slight hook on the chin, he did so with an almost childlike joke, as if he wanted to tie Alba’s shoelaces in an unobserved moment.
Perhaps it was this mixture of looseness and tension that gave Italy the title.
Chiellini spoke about the game in good English after the triumph on British television.
It was a tough game, with the worst possible start.
Chiellini himself had contributed to the early deficit when he let England's Kieran Trippier cross after barely two minutes.
So it was 1-0 for the English.
"We stayed calm," said Chiellini.
“And after 15 minutes we started playing, playing, playing.
We were in control. "
It is still open how things will go on for Chiellini.
His contract at Juventus has expired, he is currently without a club, but it is said that he will extend it for at least one season.
Italy's future
And in the national team?
Actually, the European Championship title would be a good moment to step down.
Chiellini had already considered it in 2018 when he and his colleagues were only the second Italian team to miss the World Cup.
But unlike Gianluigi Buffon, he continued.
From today's perspective an excellent decision.
But will he hold out until the World Cup in 17 months?
If not, like Bonucci, it would leave a vacuum.
Italy has a number of excellent footballers in their prime, first and foremost Marco Verratti, 28, and Jorginho, 29. Behind them, however, there is a lack of younger potential exceptional players.
Nicolò Barella, 24, and striker Federico Chiesa, 23, are definitely one of them.
But actually the future of the defeated English looks more promising than that of the new European champion.
But nobody looked to the future with the Italians on Sunday evening.
More like the past.
"We hear 'It's coming home' all the time, day in and day out," said Bonucci: "I'm sorry for the English, but the trophy is now making a nice trip to Rome."