Home ›› 26 Mar 2022 ›› Sport
Roberto Mancini was reeling from the most painful defeat of his managerial career after Thursday’s stunning, last-gasp 1-0 loss to North Macedonia meant they missed out on their second World Cup in a row.
Mancini had become a national hero after leading the Azzurri back from the horrors of failing to reach the 2018 tournament and winning Euro 2020.
However, performance levels have dropped since those balmy nights and after throwing away automatic qualification in November Italy were dumped out in humiliating fashion in Palermo in a fraught play-off semi-final.
“Just like July was the best thing to happen to me in my career, this is my biggest disappointment... I’m really sad for my players,” Mancini told RAI.
“The disappointment is too much for me to speak about my future for now.”
If Mancini was vague on whether he would stay in his job the head of the Italian Football Federation, Gabriele Gravina, was clear that he wanted Mancini to stay on as manager even after a crushing blow for the country’s football.
It was a former Palermo player in Aleksandar Trajkovski who stunned the European champions, his low drive in the second minute of stoppage time setting up a qualifying final with Portugal in Porto on Tuesday.
“We had two shots and won the game. We won like Italians against the Italians,” said Blagoja Milevski.
Mancini’s side were loudly booed off after a defeat which means Italy will have to wait until at least 2026 to see its national team at a World Cup. By then it will have been 12 years since the Azzurri’s last participation in the world’s biggest football tournament.
Astonishingly Italy will not go to the World Cup despite only losing twice since the start of 2019, to Spain in the Nations League last autumn and on Thursday.
“It’s difficult to talk about a match in which we had 40 shots and they had one or two,” Mancini said. “I’m the coach, when in football things go wrong it’s the coach’s fault, so I am responsible.”
Italy as predicted dominated the play but as has been the case in recent matches struggled to break down a resolute away side and when presented with chances were not clinical enough to take them.
They should have been ahead on the half-hour mark when Domenico Berardi was gifted the ball on the edge of the area by goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski.
The Sassuolo winger took too long to shoot and hit his effort into Dimitrievski’s welcoming arms.
The home fans were on their feet hailing an Italy hero seven minutes before the break, but it was for Alessandro Florenzi stopping Darko Churlinov from giving North Macedonia the lead after bursting through into a great scoring position.
Berardi was frustrated again just after the hour, this time Ezgjan Alioski throwing himself into a fantastic block after Marco Verratti had clipped Berardi through with a typically classy ball.
But just as the match looked to be heading into a tense extra-time Trajkovski popped up to hit a perfect low strike past Gianluigi Donnarumma and cause another earthquake for Italian football.
Portugal beat Turkey to stay on track
Portugal were through to a decisive World Cup qualifying play-off final next week after beating Turkey 3-1 in Porto on Thursday, but only after Burak Yilmaz missed a crucial late penalty for the visitors.
The home side were cruising at the Estadio do Dragao thanks to first-half goals by Brazilian-born midfielder Otavio and Liverpool forward Diogo Jota.
But Turkey’s veteran skipper Yilmaz pulled a goal back in the 65th minute, setting up a tense finish. Turkey were then awarded a late penalty following a VAR review, but Yilmaz put the spot-kick over the bar and Matheus Nunes secured Portugal’s victory in stoppage time.
