CESENAU, Moldova – When the big powers fail, the pressure can be intense, and another World Cup nightmare threatens to engulf Italy. the Azzurri They haven’t even missed the chance to participate in the 2026 World Cup yet, but discontent is already simmering.
Federico DiMarco couldn’t wait to walk off the pitch at the end of a late, but meaningless, 2-0 win over Moldova and his Italy team-mates and coach Gennaro Gattuso were not far behind, none of them acknowledging the 400 Italy fans who made the trip to Chisinau.
The protests against the Italian Federation and the chants directed at the players and Gattuso, who has been in charge of the team only since June, prompted the coach to respond to the traveling fans and highlight the pressures on the coach and the team.
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“This is not the time to tell players to go get a job,” Gattuso said.
“Honestly, I do not accept the ridicule of the masses. Now we all need to stay united.”
It was a sixth win in seven matches in Group A of UEFA World Cup qualifiers for Italy, but 2-0 was not close enough on a night when they needed to beat the bottom team in the group, leaving the four-time world champions – only Brazil has won more World Cups – needing to beat Norway by nine goals in Milan on Sunday to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 2014.
After taking 88 minutes to break the deadlock against Moldova in Chisinau thanks to Gianluca Mancini’s header, it is not unlikely that Italy will score nine unanswered goals against a Norwegian team with a 100% winning record in the group, so the Italians face the play-off draw once again.
Sweden eliminated Italy from qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, and North Macedonia denied them qualification for the 2022 World Cup. Both countries are potential opponents this time around in Thursday’s play-off draw, if Italy fails to score those nine goals against Norway.
The sterile scenario in front of them explains why Demarco and his teammates left the field so quickly after the final whistle. They know the fate that awaits them and the pressure they will be under to avoid the disgrace of Italy, one of the great nations in the sport, which has lost the World Cup for the third time in a row, having qualified for the round of 14 the previous time.
“In my day, the best runner-up went straight to the World Cup, and now the rules have changed,” Gattuso said.
“To change the rules, you have to tell those who organize these tournaments.
“If we look at South America, where six out of 10 teams qualify directly for the World Cup and the seventh head to a play-off with a team from Oceania, it makes you regret it. This is the disappointment. The system needs to change in Europe.”
Perhaps so, but perhaps Italy also needs to do better because Germany, Spain, England and France, fellow European heavyweights, have not had the same problem qualifying for the World Cup in recent seasons. Italy’s 3-0 defeat to Norway at the start of the qualifiers, which cost coach Luciano Spalletti his job, was clearly damaging to the national team. Azzurri.
But with goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) being the first tie-breaker if teams are level on points – rather than head-to-head results – there should have been plenty of time to overcome this loss in Oslo.
But Norway’s unbroken winning streak has been built on emphatic victories, including an 11-1 win over Moldova, then a 5-0 win in Chisinau. These results alone increased the goal difference by 15 goals.
So, despite being flawless since their loss to Norway, with five straight wins in Group I, Italy have been unable to keep up with the Norwegian goal machine.
Erling Haaland has scored 14 goals in the qualifying stages, nine more than Italy’s leading scorer in the group, Matteo Retegui, and just four fewer than Italy had scored in six games before kick-off in Moldova.
Rather than being a story of Italian failure, this is actually an exceptional story for Norway, and the result remains the same in the 2018 and 2022 qualifiers: Italy face the play-off again, barring a miracle in Milan on Sunday.
But they had the opportunity against Moldova to at least give themselves the chance of a remarkable comeback in the final match against Norway.
A big win – an even more emphatic win than their record 9-0 win over the USA in 1948 – would have given Gattuso’s side little hope of an emphatic victory over Stahl Solbakken’s side that would secure first place and qualification.
When the Italy players boarded the team bus to travel the four miles from their hotel in Chisinau to the stadium, Norway were tied 0-0 at half-time against Estonia, but by the time the Italians arrived at the Zimbro Stadium just 20 minutes later, Norway were 4-0 ahead and any hope of dropping the points and putting their fate back in Italy’s hands had evaporated.
So Italy realized that it had to beat Moldova and Norway by a margin of 19 goals in its favor. However, Moldova has conceded 26 goals in six matches, and they are ranked 156th in the world – sandwiched between Singapore and Puerto Rico – for nothing.
But Italy’s mission was so ridiculously unrealistic that it made their players so desperate to score, while at the same time emboldening Moldova to raise their level of play to unprecedented levels.
As a result, Italy’s goalless first half was a comedy of errors. The team shot 13 balls on goal, nine of them from inside the penalty area, and failed to score with any of them. But had it not been for a brilliant shot from Moldova striker Virgilio Postolacci in the 33rd minute, Italy would have suffered the ignominy of going behind.
Despite a surprisingly high ninth-place finish in the FIFA World Rankings, Italy are nothing more than a functional team. The team lacks star quality, perhaps with the exception of midfielders Sandro Tonali and Giacomo Raspadori, and coach Gattuso hinted before the match that Liverpool striker Federico Chiesa had refused to be called up for the matches against Moldova and Norway.
Gattuso told reporters: “I have to respect what the player tells me.
While Chiesa chose to stay in England, Gattuso chose not to play Brentford full-back Michael Kayode, whose long throws may have been crucial against Moldova, especially with tall striker Gianluca Scamaca returning to the team after a two-year injury battle.
But Gattuso, Italy’s sixth coach since Cesare Prandelli oversaw their last World Cup appearance in 2014, has a winning record, so he can point to those results as justification for his choices.
However, he knows his team must improve if they want to reach the World Cup. They ended up having 28 chances in Chisinau, but only scored two of them – Mancini’s header and Pio Esposito’s stoppage-time strike – so Gattuso needs Moise Kean to return from injury and may have to persuade Chiesa to make himself available again.
With these two players back in the squad and Arsenal defender Riccardo Calafiore back to fitness, Italy will be stronger. But when Gattuso and his players boarded the flight back to Milan’s Malpensa Airport at 1.30am, less than two hours after the final whistle, they will have done so with apprehension about what awaits them.
The World Cup qualifiers have become a series of horror movies for Italy, and they need to change the ending.
