‘Grotesque’: Italy goalkeeper concedes embarrassing goal for the ages

Gianluigi Donnarumma, who broke the hearts of Liverpool and England in penalty shootouts, suffered one of the most embarrassing goalkeeping blunders ever seen on Sunday night.

Playing for Italy in their Nations League quarter-final second leg away to Germany, the 26-year-old became embroiled in an argument with referee Szymon Marciniak in the 36th minute moments after tipping a header by Tim Kleindienst over the crossbar.

As Donnarumma strode from his line and outside his six-yard box to remonstrate with the match official, Joshua Kimmich quickly took a corner and an unmarked Jamal Musiala was on hand to half-volley the ball into an empty net to put Germany 2-0 up on the night and 4-1 up on aggregate.

An ashen-faced Donnarumma was a picture of despair – in stark contrast to two weeks ago when he was Paris Saint-Germain’s hero at Anfield where he saved penalties from Darwin Nuñez and Curtis Jones in a shootout to knock Liverpool out of the Champions League. The same goalkeeper also foiled England with his penalty heroics at Wembley in the European Championship final in 2021.

Italian daily newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport described it as “a grotesque goal” while Libero Quotidiano was more scathing in its assessment.

“Such disastrous and glaring absent-mindedness cannot be tolerated. There is not a team in the world who would allow such a scene to unfold without noticing it, let alone the Italian national team, which should be the symbol of pride and diligence. The image you see [of Donnarumma] is being shown all around the world. And it is very damaging.”

Donnarumma’s mad moment was not the only drama in Dortmund. Germany, who had started the scoring with a 30th-minute Kimmich penalty, went further ahead through Kleindienst on the stroke of half-time, only for Italy to fight back in the second half and secure a 3-3 draw.

Former Everton striker Moise Kean cut the deficit four minutes after the restart. With the Germans a shadow of their earlier selves, Kean then beat defender Jonathan Tah in the 69th minute to make it 3-2.