Italy enters the first match of the playoffs after its goalless draw with Northern Ireland in its last match, as the Italians paid the price of the draw during the penultimate round at home against Switzerland (1-1) in a meeting that missed in the last seconds a penalty kick through Jorginho. For its part, North Macedonia defeated Iceland 3-1 before colliding with the Azzurri.
Italian coach Roberto Mancini seems confident of his team’s ability to overcome the play-off
Italy is in a critical situation. Despite the high heels of the Azzurri in today’s match, there is a great possibility that the Italians will miss the “global wedding”. The absence of an elite team from the 2022 World Cup was previously confirmed, after the European play-off draw placed Italy and Portugal in the third track against North Macedonia and Turkey, respectively, which means that, if they exceed the latter, they will meet Tuesday in Porto within the final track to determine which of them will reach the finals. It is worth noting that the Italian national team was absent from the last World Cup, which was held in Russia in 2018, after losing the continental play-off to Sweden, which kept it away from the World Cup for the first time since 1958.
Mancini seems confident of his team’s ability to overcome the play-off, given that he is thinking about the finals of the Qatar World Cup scheduled for the end of this year. He said before the upcoming match against North Macedonia: “Our goal is to win the World Cup. And to win the World Cup we have to win these two matches. There is nothing else to add.” In terms of numbers, Italy played two matches against North Macedonia in the European qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup. The Azzurri won one match and tied the other. On the other hand, Italy faced Portugal in 27 matches, Italy won in 18 matches, while Portugal won in 6. As for the possible third party, the numbers indicate that Turkey and Italy faced in 11 matches, the Azzurri had the largest share in the number of wins (8 matches) against 3 draws). The numbers support the Azzurri against the other three teams, but the difficulty of the supplement may contribute to Italy’s absence from the finals for the second time in a row.
Mancini called 33 players to the list that will run in the European play-off, which witnessed the absence of striker Mario Balotelli, despite press reports that he could be on the list for the second time in a row after he joined last January, while the list witnessed the presence of Joao Pedro, a Cagliari player for the first time. Once. Mancini, who is missing his most important attacking element with an injury to Federico Chiesa, will rely on the experience of my last defense colleague Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci (recently returned from injury), and on midfielders Marco Verratti and Nicolo Parilla as well as Jorginho, while the front line includes prominent players such as Lorenzo Insigne and Domenico Berardi, without losing sight of striker Ciro Immobile.