Unpleasant fate for Italy: The four-time soccer world champion will face Northern Ireland in the semi-finals of the playoffs for the 2026 World Cup.
This was the result of the draw on Thursday in Zurich. Should coach Gennaro Gattuso’s team, which is under a lot of pressure, win their home game against the Northern Irish, one of the last tickets for the finals away from Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina would be waiting for one of the last tickets in the final.
“Losfee” Marco Materazzi, world champion with Italy in Germany in 2006, also took care of the duel between Turkey and Romania, Denmark meets North Macedonia and Ukraine meets Sweden. The semi-finals will take place on March 26th, the finals five days later. A total of four European World Cup participants are still being sought for the tournament in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
Italy missed the playoffs at the last two World Cup tournaments in Russia and Qatar. In 2018, the Squadra Azzurra was eliminated by Sweden (0:1/0:0), four years later the 2021 European champions had to admit defeat to North Macedonia (0:1).
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Northern Ireland finished third in the German qualifying group after two defeats against the DFB team (1:3/0:1).
Two World Cup tickets will be played in the intercontinental playoff tournament, in which New Caledonia will face Jamaica and Bolivia will face Suriname. The winner of the game between New Caledonia and Jamaica will face DR Congo, who are seeded in the final due to their world ranking position, and in the second final Iraq will play against the winner of the second duel. The matches will take place in Guadalajara and Monterrey, two of Mexico’s three World Cup venues.