the thing is if European qualifying was a single table we would not be going to a playoff. this hasn't been a bad campaign. we would be first in many of the other groups with 18 pts. Germany has an L and are top Portugal has an L and are top Austria has an L and are top Belgium has 3 draws and are top etc etc... it is unlucky in this sense. I think people are taking this as an excuse for not making the world cup when Gatusso is trying to rally his team to know they have had a good campaign and should not fear the qualifiers or feel like they are a poor side compared to others. it's a fine line between playing the victim and making the team feel like hey it will be unjust if we don't finish the job now. But I don't think anything he is saying is incorrect.
Yes and the level in europe has risen greatly. Italy has become vulnerable because of a lack of depth but two things can be true at the same time. Look at our Euro and World Cup qualifying groups the last 20 years more so the last 10 and they look stronger than what most of the expanded world cup group stages will be. We have had Spain England France Croatia Switzerland and now a generational Norway. There is always a big team in Europe that is put in a tough spot England Netherlands Portugal have felt the blade many times. We even have a spotty record of qualifying for the Euros historically it's just that since 2006 we are always on a Euro cycle and not a World Cup cycle for whatever reason.
I mean.. thats just not true that we have cruised to every single world cup easily and automatically. 82 - 86 was easy and automatic due to previous winners and hosting. Otherwise there was some stress. 1998 we qualified through the playoff by beating Russia by 1 goal over 2 legs. Leg 1 was played in a literal blizzard in Russia. That was with a team loaded with: Maldini, Cannavaro, Nesta, Vieri, Del Piero, Zola, D. Baggio, Inzaghi. We didn't lose any games but we tied Poland, Georgia and England all 0-0. Shit happens sometimes even with a good team with quality. 1994 we directly qualified (when 2 teams were still through in a group). We only really secured qualification in the last 10 mins of the final match vs Portugal. Had they scored and won we would have been out. 1990 we were hosts and automatically qualified 1986 we qualified as winners of the previous tournament 1982 we qualified, however, finished 2nd in the group behind Yugoslavia, albeit still with a nice cushion over 3rd. 1978 we qualified by a razor thin margin by goal differential over england who we were tied with on points.
damn that's some great history and perspective .. and yes Italy has almost always been so so in qualifiers and friendlies particularly we always struggled in September. 2006 we looked great when we smashed Germany in a friendly which should have been a clue and of course we know Mancini broke the record for a national team so it was no fluke that we won those tournaments but it's always been a challenge to make a coherent national team.
The teams in question are the top 8 (ie; Quarter Finalists onwards). Correct? We will see tomorrow how Germany vs Slovakia plays out, but the other 6 QF that were burdened by advancing in the UNL are Spain, Croatia, The Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, France. These 6 didn’t let the UNL get in the way. Just seems like Italy and we will after tomorrow what awaits Germany. If half or more of these 8 were set back by the UNL then I could see the argument. But if it's just Italy, I don’t see how this point is valid.
Yes. You are crazy. They aren't going for 9 goals. How would it be set up anyways? No midfield at all. A 5-0-5 Lineup. Long ball punts into the Half completely by-passing any sort of buildup, lol.
UEFA has new nations yet the allotment remains the same. My issue with comments about expanded tournament is that it went from 24 to 32. Always only 13 UEFA teams. Why didn't UEFA get 1 or 2 when it went from 24 to 32? So now it doubles to 48 and only 3 more spots? Haters carrying on about "italy can't qualify to an expanded tournament" aren't being honest about the allotment. It's not like UEFA received 8 more spots. Only 3 more spots when it went from 24 to 48? Also... When Yugoslavia broke up, we've gotten 6 new nations. Of those 6 new nations, 4 of them, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina have qualified to the World Cup. USSR disbanded, Russia, Ukraine have qualified to the World Cup. Georgia qualified to a European Championships. Czechslovkia broke up and both Czech Republic now called Czechia and Slovakia have qualified to a World Cup. So all these new nations that have come about the last 3 decades are very much in the mix to take spots from an allotment that has remained largely the same. This is not being talked about.
What a rage bait picture. As if Gattuso is questioning Argentina or Brazil. And not how 8th Placed Venezuela was in the mix until the final matchday.
Louis Buffon son of the Italian legend, Gianluigi Buffon, scored a hattrick with Czech Republic under-19's
The game to go all out on was against Moldova, the same team Norway put 11 goals past. It is inexcusable barely winning that game and like I said, I put most of the blame on the coach for not giving a shit by playing second stringers. Norway literally played their first stringers against Estonia. Our U19 just put in 8 goals against Moldova, we needed something similar so that we can realistically fight against Norway for first place. 9 goals though. It's already over.
Pot 4 confirmed teams: *Sweden *Northern Ireland *Romania *Wales or North Macedonia (tied on pts, they play each other in last game with North Macedonia having the superior GD) Comparing all the teams GDs, Sweden surprisingly is easily the worst team here. That is who we want. Northern Ireland, Romania, and Wales are similar and North Macedonia might be the best team, but let's see how this all plays out.
FIFA’s assist: Italy a seeded team if they qualify for the World Cup. We’d still be among the top 12. This is from Tuttosport If I understand correctly, whatever the result against Norway, we will be in Pot 1 both for playoffs and World Cup draws.
Yup. No reason to not try and get 6 goals in EACH match versus Moldova. I recall very clearly early in the 2022 Campaign, Mancini made it a point of emphasizing going for goals ahead of the Lithuania match. It was evident early on even for jagoffs on a message board that tie breakers could play a part in it. But the team didn't have a care in the world. Even if Italy left it to needing a 3-0 against Norway, while extremely difficult, not impossible. Just seemed like they were content on keeping Israel away from 2nd.
Optimistic me sees them giving Norway a nice whooping. Realistic me see a draw or loss. Di Lo is back in the starting lineup, not many complaints about today's starters except for Di Lo and Locatelli.
Moldova is significantly below Armenia in the World Rankings by approximately 50 places and Italy only put 2 on them, 2 times this cycle. To boot the Manager says with all the Lineup changes Italy risked losing the match. WTF? Portugal put 9 past Armenia today for fun when they really didn't need to. Meanwhile, Ireland come back from the dead. Troy Parrott with a hattrick, his 3rd coming on the last play of the match. Incredible. 90+5mins: 🇭🇺 2-3 🇮🇪Ireland holds its breath, on the last throw of the dice... Hattrick for Parrott 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮 📺 @rte2 @rteplayer https://t.co/xaKTb2LBVG 📻 @rteradio1 https://t.co/PEszeaDYyf 📱Updates: https://t.co/TC5xt2IxRd pic.twitter.com/Ags3WrAwOz— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) November 16, 2025
I would push back on this as cherry picking because Italy has 18 points with one game remaining with 20 goals scored .. this is better than Germany France as many as England.... Portugal also have a Loss and a Draw from a significantly easier group and Portugal are sitting on 13 points with 20 goals scored after 6 matches after this 9 goal performance. Even when we factor in the groups of 4 teams having 2 less games we've scored a normal amount of goals really. Switzerland are sitting first in their group with 13 goals after 5 games. Italy certainly is not one of the best attacks in Europe but we also are not particularly struggling to score goals nor can we really say we had a bad qualifying campaign looking at the other groups. Really our issue is that we allowed Norway to score 3 against us and Israel to score 4 with all those blunders. If we could have lost 1-0 to Norway and kept a clean sheet against Israel we'd probably only need to beat Norway 2-0 to go through or something like this.
Our defense is weak.This is the all time worst Italian defence. No matter who we put out there. Our striker issue appears to have been fixed however.
OK. Point taken. But they needed to adapt to circumstances after the disaster in Oslo and recognize that they needed more goals.
that's true i think with these minnows you need to break the deadlock as soon as possible and sometimes they just completely give up. It would have been nice if we could have found a way to make the final game mean something. It's really too bad.
The Lineup is out and this dumbass has Dimarco playing in a flat 4. 🚨Official Lineup vs Norway🇮🇹🇳🇴3-5-2Donnarumma©️: Di Lorenzo, Mancini, Bastoni: Politano, Barella, Locatelli, Frattesi, Dimarco: Retegui, Pio EspositoBench: Carnesecchi, Vicario, Buongiorno, Gabbia, Cambiaso,Bellanova,Cristante, Ricci, Orsolini, Zaccagni, Raspadori, Scamacca https://t.co/a9d2uhpsQ6— AzzurriXtra🇮🇹 (@XtraAzzurri) November 16, 2025 EDIT: The probable lineup was correct. Is this a case of a journalist being correct on a guess or someone talking?
There are people still saying we need a result for getting top seeds in playoffs and World Cup. I think we have already achieved that
At the very least it shows Italy have trouble scoring on a low block. Which is not good given *IF* they qualify will face 1 or 2 that will set up this way. Probably because of lack of quality and because the Italian game is too slow.
Yeah exactly which is why we could win a Euro and then miss 2022 ...we weren't bad enough against either Sweden or Macedonia for them to be able to win they both got lucky goals but we simply could not break them down. If a team parks the bus they have a chance against us. It's not a sound strategy but it can work. I think this team has just enough firepower to overcome that this time .. lets hope anyway.