Italy will miss the World Cup for the second straight time after a massive qualifying playoff round upset at the hands of North Macedonia.
Just nine months removed from winning the Euros, Italy suffered yet another national disgrace on the World Cup stage after missing out in 2018. Aleksandar Trajkovski’s 92nd-minute stunner proved to be the goal that sent Italy spiraling out of the qualifying playoff. The site of the game, Palermo, was fitting Trajkovski, who spent four seasons playing for the Italian club between 2015-19.
Italy had qualified for every World Cup between 1962 and 2014 before missing out in the qualifying playoff round ahead of the 2018 competition, and had only missed the World Cup once in its history before the consecutive failures. The defeat was Italy’s first World Cup qualifying loss on home soil ever after previously going 48-0-11.
It didn’t come from a lack of possession or attempts in the final third. Yet despite outshooting North Macedonia 32–4, Italy only managed five shots on target in Palermo against a stalwart defensive effort from the visitors.
North Macedonia made headlines a year ago by handing Germany its first World Cup qualifying defeat since 2001, breaking the 2014 world champion’s 35-match unbeaten streak in World Cup qualifiers. It was a lesson the Azzurri failed to learn from. While winning the Euros was a stroke of redemption, Italy’s murky recent World Cup record is glaring. Since winning the World Cup in 2006, Italy has gone on to fail to get out of the group stage in 2010 and 2014 before missing two tournaments outright.
Italy ended up in the playoff after drawing four of its eight qualifiers, including its final two in November to finish second it the group. However, the semifinal against North Macedonia was not expected to be the matchup that gave it trouble with a potential playoff final against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, which defeated Turkey on Thursday.
In the night’s other World Cup qualifying playoff semifinals, Wales defeated Austria 2-1 thanks to two goals by Gareth Bale, while Sweden edged the Czech Republic 1-0 in extra time on Robin Quaison’s goal. Wales will play the winner of Scotland-Ukraine (their semifinal was postponed to June on account of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), while Sweden will face Poland, which received a bye to the playoff final following Russia’s expulsion from qualifying.
