Chelsea's involvement in Euro 2008 underwent a major pruning with the elimination of France on Tuesday night.

In a replay of the 2006 World Cup Final, Italy were again triumphant, this time by a 2-0 scoreline in normal time. With Adrian Mutu and his Romanian team-mates losing 2-0 to The Netherlands in the night's other Group C game, France were consigned to last place in the table.

Claude Makelele was the one player from the three Chelsea names in the French squad who started the game, and he did his upmost to keep Italy at bay, clearing off the line from former Chelsea defender Christian Panucci as early as the 11th minute,

Nicolas Anelka was introduced with two-thirds of the game gone but was unable to shoot at Gianluigi Buffon's goal; Florent Malouda, who started the previous two games, remained on the bench.

France conceded a penalty 24 minutes into the game, with Barcelona's Eric Abidal sent-off. The spot-kick was scored by Andrea Pirlo, as in the shoot-out in Germany two years earlier.

The goal compound French problems that began when starlet Franck Ribery was lost to injury with only seven minutes gone.

Italy added a second-half second goal four minutes before the introduction of Anelka on 66 minutes, Daniele De Rossi of Roma firing in a free-kick via a deflection off Thierry Henry in the wall.

Reports emerging after the game are that Makelele has announced his retirement from international football following the defeat.

The 35-year-old has played 71 times for his country, 47 games since moving to Stamford Bridge. Though he missed out of the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European Championship wins, the pinnacle of his games for Les Bleus has been an appearance in the World Cup Final two years ago.