Knockout football is hard. In a league or in the group stage, you can make mistakes or take a game off, knowing there will be more chances to progress in the future. From the Round of 16 (or 32 in the Europa League) onwards, it's all about the margins.

From the very beginning, Austria looked to be playing a style built on being that marginal one step ahead of the Italians. The tank Marko Arnautovic got a yellow card in the opening five minutes for a needlessly hard tackle on Nicolo Barella; typically, this would seem rash but here it felt like a statement of intent.

The Laimer/Lainer connection on the right flank that had done wonders for Austria throughout the tournament continued here only their reliance on Arnautovic meant the Italians knew exactly how to stop their attack.

On the other side of things, Leonardo Spinazzola has continued to prove he's Italy's most invaluable player as he constantly and consistently moved the ball out of the defense and up across to Domenico Berardi and Ciro Immobile.

And yet, the free-flowing Italian offence that had been on thrilling display in the group stage was repeatedly shut down by the collapsing defense of Austria. Their 4-2-3-1 spent a lot of time acting as a back six with team captain David Alaba acting as a box-to-box left-winger.

It was 0-0 at half time and, to their credit, this didn't seem to bother the Italians, who started the second half with a noticeable swagger. The fear only crept into their game with 25 minutes remaining; Arnautovic finally used his muscle to beast through the Italian defense and knocked in a point-blank header over Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

It was ruled off by VAR – Arnautovic's knee was slightly offside - but the damage was done. Austria went into the ascendancy and Italy didn't know how to handle it. They were crumbling for about 10 minutes until Spinazzola got things back on track and set up chances for Berardi and Lorenzo Insigne.

Still, it wasn't enough and the game entered additional extra time. Italy's manager Robert Mancini had to call a huddle to calm his side down, Austria looked like they had the moral victory and it was a formality that they would get the real victory too.

It only took five minutes for those thoughts to be disabused. This time Spinazzola got the ball to late substitution Federico Chiesa. He dummied Stefan Lainer and smashed it beyond Austria goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann. Now the game was theirs and they made it 2-0 in the 105th minute thanks to Mateo Pessina.

Austria refused to quit. The game which spent 90 minutes as a stalemate had become a goal feast when Sasa Kalajdzic snatched one back in the 114th. There were only six minutes remaining so Italy took no chances; as soon as they got the ball, they ran it to the corner flag and held on for the final whistle.

The concern was always that Italy peaked too early. Perhaps that's true, perhaps they simply haven't been dragged into deep waters before. Austria are a sneakily good team built out of key Bundesliga players and they tested Italy from start to finish. What Italy showed in the process is there is more to them than attack; when they face adversity they have grit and determination. More than Spinazzola's precision, Immobile's gunslinging, Bonucci's cleverness, it's this that will get them into the championship game.