Italy at the World Cup if… the possible opponents in the playoffs

We’ve been talking about it for a few months, to prepare ourselves and also to exorcise them a little. And now the countdown begins: the playoffs, a precious but feared entrance corridor to the World Cup for those who haven’t entered the main tunnel, are our reality. Not officially, of course: there is a remote (very remote) possibility that Norway will roll out the red carpet for us and give us its pass. We don’t even look at the goal difference, we should therefore overtake Haaland and his teammates, who have three points more in the last two games. In practice, Norway should at most draw with Estonia and lose against the Azzurri: thus Italy, also overtaking Moldova, would finish on 21 and the Norwegians on 19. Estonia, however, has collected five defeats in this group: only against Moldova have they obtained a victory and a draw. In short, no illusions. Just none. And having secured second place we can still look forward to qualification with confidence.

world hope

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Playoffs, then. Two matches to win to give the first World Cup to an entire generation of young fans: those born shortly after the triumph in Berlin enjoyed the story of the magical nights of 2006, but don’t know what it means to suffer and rejoice for the national team in the most important and global competition. Two games to win to avoid the humiliation of the third consecutive elimination from the playoffs: Sweden and North Macedonia are the fairytale ogres who did not have a happy ending. Now please stop.

seeded

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The formula is that of four years ago: semi-final at home and eventual final to be played in the venue established by the draw. In 2022, if we had beaten the Macedonians, we would have played for the pass to Portugal, a huge obstacle that however we would have really liked to try to get around. Italy is seeded and therefore in the semi-final they will draw an opponent from the fourth pot, i.e. one of the ones drawn from the Nations League: Romania, Sweden, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland. Then we will see and now there is no point in identifying a possible bogeyman, both because we will first have to deserve the final and because the qualifiers end in a month and therefore there are still many final verdicts to come in the groups. We can, however, try to hypothesize the other seeded teams (Turkey, Ukraine and Poland) and the teams that should be divided between the second (Wales, Scotland, Hungary and Czech Republic) and third (Slovakia, Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo) brackets. On November 18th the situation will be completely defined and three days later the draw will let us know the playoff pairings.

optimism

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The semi-final will be scheduled for March 26th: 162 days to go, which from a footballing point of view is a geological era. In between there will be many championship and cup matches, possible injuries, declines and improvements in form. It will be crucial to face the last two matches of the group well, both to continue the streak of successes and to reach the playoffs after beating Norway, certainly stronger than the semi-finalist we will challenge in March and very probably also than the eventual finalist. Above all, the Azzurri will have to take off the backpack of bad memories from their shoulders: it’s the past, let’s leave it aside. And let’s go and get the World Cup.