You really have to assume that the Italians will miss the World Cup for the third time in a row. The possible opponents in the first playoff game are Romania, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Wales and North Macedonia. No opponents against whom you can easily win. The advantage of knowing that we were going to the playoffs was completely destroyed today after this slap. With a 1:4 on our backs, the extreme pressure from outside and the fear of another apocalypse, that can’t actually go well. If you had played a good game today, you could probably have gone into the playoffs with confidence, but like that…
I think Italy is becoming a kind of anti-Real Madrid at national team level. Fear of failure leads to poor performance, which in turn leads to even more fear of failure. An eternal vicious circle.
From a German perspective, this is of course good. This means that all discussions about lottery pots and world rankings have probably been resolved by themselves. If you win against Slovakia, you should almost certainly overtake Italy.
How can the eliminated Northern Ireland and Sweden be possible opponents in the playoff? Sweden is last in their group.
I think you made a mistake there.
Otherwise, yes, Italy has a fundamental problem to solve. As such a large football nation, that is a disgrace.
I’ve been wondering for a long time what happened to the big World Cup nations Germany, Italy and Brazil.
Either you weren’t there at all, you left the group, or you were simply eliminated without a word without even being in the tail of the favorites. What did these nations, which are so rich in football history, do wrong?
Of course it’s off-topic, but it would be worth a deeper analysis.
Norway were pretty harmless in the first half today and the Italians didn’t get anything done either. Sure, the weather was stupid, but nothing worked. I only saw the second half until shortly before the score was 1:2. Norway was like a substitute and Italy was suddenly completely stunned.
The mood won’t work in the playoffs.