Disastro Italia: World Cup without Azzurri
Italy fails historically, Turkey also misses the Qatar tournament
03/24/2022, 10:41 p.m
What a sensation in Palermo: in the last minute of the play-off semi-finals of the World Cup qualification, North Macedonia knocked the European champions out of Italy. The 37-year-old megastar Cristiano Ronaldo only has to tremble with his Portuguese against Stefan Kuntz-trained Turkey at the end.
European football champions Italy sensationally missed out on participating in the World Cup, and Stefan Kuntz’s dream of visiting Turkey with Turkey was also shattered. Italy surprisingly lost in the playoff semi-finals in Palermo against the blatant outsiders North Macedonia 0-1 (0-0) and, like in 2018, have to watch the finals. For North Macedonia it is now in the playoff final on Tuesday against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portuguese, who won 3-1 (2-0) against Turkey coached by Kuntz.
Aleksandar Trajkovski (90th minute +2) destroyed all hopes of the Italians for the World Cup ticket with his goal in injury time. The four-time world champion missed the finals for the second time in a row. The appearance of the Squadra Azzurra was anything but ready for the title. The European champions were superior, but too unimaginative in front of the goal. That should pay off. The North Macedonians had already inflicted a surprising home defeat on the German team in the group stage.
“Disastro Italia”
“It’s hard to explain. We’re disappointed, broken, devastated. Something was missing again. We’ve made mistakes since September and have now paid for them,” said veteran Giorgio Chiellini after the embarrassment. The “Gazzetta dello Sport” aptly wrote on its homepage: “Disastro Italia”.
For Kuntz, the first defeat in the sixth game as Turkish coach was synonymous with losing the World Cup – and it was particularly bitter. Because Burak Yilmaz missed the possible compensation for the team of the former German U21 coach with a missed penalty five minutes before the end.
Until the break it had looked like a clear thing. Even though superstar Ronaldo failed to shine in his 185th international match, Otavio (15th) and Liverpool striker Diogo Jota (42nd) brought the 2016 European champion one step closer to Qatar in front of 48,010 spectators. Yilmaz then gave the Turks hope again with his connecting goal (65th). Finally, Matheus Nunes made everything clear (90+4).