Spain booked their spot in the last 16 of the 2024 European Championship with a 1-0 win over Italy on Thursday evening.
The Azzurri stuck with the same eleven that started the win over Albania, while the two-time champions recalled Aymeric Laporte and removed Nacho Fernandez in defence.
Italy nearly conceded in the opening seconds for the second match running, but a tremendous one-hand save from Gianluigi Donnarumma smothered Pedri profiting Nico Williams' cross.
The roles were reserved ten minutes played where Williams this time got in a decent scoring position to meet a cross-field ball from Alvaro Morata, but he nodded wide from the back-post.
Italy battled to get any sort of rhythm in attack going, and saw La Roja launch another threat when a powerful drive from range by Fabian Ruiz stung the gloves of Donnarumma.
Morata, who was extremely lively across the front three, looked to get one in after coming from the blind-side but Donnarumma noted the danger and rushed out to parry him.
After a torrid opening half, the Azzurri saw it fit to change the on-field personnel and in came Bryan Cristante for Jorginho before Davide Frattesi made way for Andrea Cambiaso.
Spain continued to have the lion share of chances after the break and saw Pedri tuck wide from close-range off a cutback from the left of the area.
La Roja eventually got the breakthrough ten minutes to halftime as a flick-on by Morata from Williams' cross forced Riccardo Calafiori to bundle into his own net from close-range.
Williams stayed at the heart of every Spain attack in the latter stages where he came in from the left of the area to cut inside and rattle the top of the crossbar.
The Azzurri's rare foray came moments later when Lorenzo Pellegrini lined-up just outside the area to execute a free-kick, but ended going over the top.
Spain missed a succession of chances to increase their tally courtesy of Ayoze Perez, but solid goalkeeping from Donnarumma kept him out.
Although, it didn't matter a great deal as La Roja had done just about enough to see out the win which confirmed their last 16 spot, leaving the defending champions on the back-foot.