A substitution can make the difference in football, injecting a burst of life that can turn the game on its head or help see out a much-needed result. In this article we’ll be looking at the Azzurri’s top scorers off the bench in all of history, including both competitive and friendly engagements.

It should come as no surprise that all of those leading the list are strikers, with Enrico Chiesa and Alessandro Del Piero tied in first place on five goals off the bench apiece.

The former Parma and Fiorentina frontman, not to mention the father of Federico, scored five of his seven goals for Italy after coming on midway through games: the first came in a friendly against Belgium on 29 May 1996, as he came on to replace Di Livio at the start of the second half. His next contribution was in fact a hat-trick in an exhibition match against the FIFA World Stars XI in Rome, Chiesa coming on to replace Totti that day. His final finish came in Italy’s 4-0 win over Wales at the Dall’Ara on 5 June 1999, a match in the qualifiers for EURO 2000 where he came on for Inzaghi in the 80th minute.

Del Piero sits fourth on Italy’s all-time goalscoring list (level with Roberto Baggio) on 27, with the last of his five goals off the bench coming during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He scored it in front of the Südtribüne at the Westfalenstadion in that unforgettable semi-final in Dortmund against the tournament’s hosts. The goal came on the turn in extra time after he’d come on to replace Perrotta. His first goal as a substitute came in a friendly against Northern Ireland in Palermo on 22 January 1997; that day it was Zola who made way for the Juventus man. Then, he scored a decisive penalty in a friendly against Sweden on 23 February 2000 after coming on for Montella at the start of the second half. His goal in the friendly against the USA on 13 June 2002 was equally as decisive. A short while later, during the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, he came off the bench to score an equaliser against Mexico, winning the Azzurri a point that guaranteed their progress into the knockout rounds.

After this pair of potent goalscorers, we have a quartet of attackers, who, on three occasions, managed to come on partway through a match and get on the scoresheet. Quagliarella hit one of them in a World Cup match, during that ill-fated tournament in 2010. In the group-stage game against Slovakia, the striker replaced Gattuso and went on to score, though it did little to change Italy’s fate as they were eliminated from the tournament. For Pazzini, who bagged 75% of his four Azzurri goals off the bench, they all came in qualifying matches: in the 2010 World Cup against Montenegro in Podgorica and in two EURO 2012 qualifiers (against Estonia and Slovenia). Eder is the third player to score three goals off the bench for Italy, one of which was against Bulgaria and secured qualification for EURO 2016. On that occasion, he came off the bench (replacing Belotti) to make it 3-0 against Uruguay in Nice in June 2017. Finally, he scored against Liechtenstein in a 2018 World Cup qualifier (taking the place of Immobile).

Finally, Giuseppe Rossi was the archetypal impact sub. The American-born Italian came off the bench to bag a brace against the nation of his birth in the 2009 Confederations Cup. His third goal as a substitute was in a friendly against Germany in 2011.