Before the match early this morning, Northern Ireland took the field with an imperfect squad when lacking 2/4 players playing in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Italy is considered to have enough troops but is facing pressure to sit at home and watch the World Cup for the 3rd consecutive time.
4 years ago, Northern Macedonia once prevented Azzurri from reaching the festival in Qatar. Therefore, there is no reason not to believe that Northern Ireland will do the same, even they themselves prevented Italy from participating in the 1958 World Cup.
The Italian squad that played against Northern Ireland cannot be compared with the generation that won the 2006 World Cup or EURO 2020, but they are not apprentices. Gianluigi Donnarumma is the best goalkeeper in the world. Sandro Tonali is a player who can play for any team in the Premier League at the present time or like Riccardo Calafiori, he is a prominent player of Arsenal at the moment.
One of Gennaro Gattuso's correct decisions, besides using stars in good form, was to move the venue from San Siro to New Balance Arena. The pressure from Atalanta's home ground has decreased significantly compared to the atmosphere the Italian team had to endure at San Siro in the defeat to Norway.
Throughout the first half against Northern Ireland, Italy was almost deadlocked, but the patience in the stands was felt, the fans were no longer as enraged as in the match at San Siro, which helped the players calm down and Tonali's goal came as a matter of course.
To reach the 2026 World Cup, Italy needs to beat Northern Ireland and Bosnia Herzegovina. Although the opponent in the final is Wales, Italy only needs to be themselves, they will solve it when their class and force are somewhat superior to all 3 opponents. When reaching the World Cup, the opponents of Gattuso's team in Group B will be Canada, Switzerland and Qatar.
This journey is not too difficult, but Azzurri understands that everything needs to be resolved step by step. Before the match against Northern Ireland, Gattuso said this was a fateful moment for his coaching career. On April 1st, this personality strategist may repeat that message as a next morale boost.
Italy has been watching the World Cup at home for 12 years, since the last time they participated in Brazil in 2014. 12 years is a very long time, equal to the youth of many tifosi. In the official squad to play against Northern Ireland early this morning, no player in the Azzurri squad has ever played at the World Cup. 12 years may be 2 generations of players, so with the current stars, if they continue to miss out again, they may no longer have the opportunity to play at the World Cup.
There is still one more match, but right now, Gattuso can sleep a little better. After the victory over Northern Ireland, he advised his players to enjoy even just 1 day so that everyone can rush back to prepare for the face-defying match of Italian football in more than a decade.
