Janne Palomäki
Italy’s road stood up in the same World Cup qualifying stage now for the third time in a row, writes Janne Palomäki.
French referee Clément Turpin sends Alessandro Baston (sitting on the grass) off the pitch in Zenica. EPA / AOP
When Italy qualified for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, several commissions were appointed to investigate the disaster.
The level of Serie A, the weakness of the junior team and the miserable finish were mentioned in many papers.
Italy fell to Sweden in the two-part play-off because they failed to score a goal in 180 minutes.
Four years later it was already a strange curse because no one could understandhow one goal scored by Aleksandar Trajkovski in extra time could drop the Azzurri already in the semi-finals of the further qualification.
However, Trajkovski “only” played for the North Macedonian national team.
It was true. Italy had qualified for the second time from the World Cup finals.
Although it seemed like a nightmare, Italy was not yet a strange bird. Twice in a row, such football powerhouses as Uruguay, France, England or Spain had also been excluded from the games.
But that third time in a row?
– I want to personally apologize that we didn’t make it to the games, head coach Gennaro Gattuso said on Tuesday evening in Zenica.
Gennaro Gattuso apologized. PDO
Bosnia-Herzegovina had just beaten Italy in the decisive penalty shootout, where Bryan Cristante fired the ball with power into the upper beam, while Pio Esposito bombed it into the orbit around the Earth.
– We can’t quite believe this yet. We are out of the Games and this way. It’s shocking to us, our families and for all the kids who have never seen Italy play in the World Cupdefender Leonardo Spinazzola continued.
Italy last played in the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, when they tried to squeeze out of the first group by playing to a scoreless draw with Uruguay.
Celeste’s powerhouse Diego Godín smashed the plan to pieces in the 81st minute.
Today, Wednesday, 4299 days have passed since that moment, or more than 11 years and nine months.
That statistic becomes grim, because from this Wednesday there are 1530 days until the 2030 World Cup final tournament starts.
It’s a completely different matter, then, whether Italy is involved even then.
This qualifying campaign started unhappily. It was really bad luck that Italy were drawn to start the qualifiers just days after Inter went 0-5 in the Champions League final.
It was clear that the Nerazzurri quartet (Nicolò Barella, Davide Frattesi, Federico Dimarco and Alessandro Bastoni) was not at its bestwhen Italy faced the best Norway in history at the Ullevaal Stadium in Oslo.
After that, the Azzurri were constantly behind Norway, who won all their qualifying matches.
This is how Italy’s road took them to the next qualification as the second in the group, where they first defeated Northern Ireland on Thursday.
However, the biggest uproar arose when the television cameras noticed, how Guglielmo Vicario and Dimarco fanned the national teamwhen word came from Cardiff that Wales had fallen to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
