European champion in title, Italy is eliminated by North Macedonia and will not play the competition

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History repeats itself for Italy. Eliminated in the play-offs in 2017 against Sweden, after a completely dominated return match, but without managing to score, the Italians again cracked one step away from the World Cup. This time against North Macedonia, Thursday March 24, on a goal ofAleksandar Trajkovski in stoppage time (90 + 2nd). The Macedonians will face Portugal for a ticket to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar

A real earthquake in Palermo, where the match took place between the Squadra Azzurra and the Macedonians. While Roberto Mancini’s players dominated the entire game, they were surprised in the last seconds of the match by a long-range cannon shot from Aleksandar Trajkovski, which lodged in the side netting of Gianluigi Donnarumma.

A wink of fate, the Macedonian played for four years in this Renzo Barbera stadium under the pink and black colors of Palermo FC. Today, it is he who comes to punish the Italian inefficiency which will have lacked everything offensively.

Domenico Berardi perfectly illustrates this difficulty in making the nets tremble on the part of the Italians. With four very clear chances to open the scoring, the Sassuolo striker wasted a lot. His shot without power when Stole Dimitrievski had completely failed in his recovery (30th) is the symbol of this chronic inefficiency which had been watching Italy for several meetings.

His shot from the entrance to the off-target area (54th), the one above the goal when he had no more defenders in front of him (58th) or his counter attempt between the penalty spot and the six meters (63rd) will remain in Italian memories. But he is far from being the only one to blame in this collective failure as Lorenzo Insigne and Ciro Immobile were invisible on the attacking front.

Authors of 42 goals between them in Serie A, they failed to put Stole Dimitrievski in difficulty with only five shots on target out of 32 attempts. Their inability to put the Macedonian defense at risk from their 16 corners also weighed in the balance.

And yet, the Squadra Azzurra was warned. At the end of the first half, Aleksandar Trajkovski had already tried his luck on a quick transition and had put Gianluigi Donnarumma to work.

Also prevented by the two direct confrontations against North Macedonia in the qualifying phase for the 2018 World Cup in which Italy had won with difficulty in Skopje (3-2) and had conceded a draw in Turin (1-1) .

Finally, prevented above all by the disillusionment of 2017 in the play-offs against Sweden. After losing the first leg 1-0 to Solna, the Italians had pushed the whole game back to Milan, but had never found the fault despite 75% possession and 26 strikes (0-0). A national disaster, at the time, after fourteen consecutive participations since non-qualification in 1958.

We thought this past trauma with the arrival of Roberto Mancini, his series of 34 games without defeats and the triumph at Euro 2021. Yet the last two qualifying matches against Switzerland (1-1) and Northern Ireland (0-0) that pushed Italy into the play-offs were ominous birds.

After Russia, the European champions will therefore not see Qatar either in November for the next World Cup. Two editions without the quadruple champions, a first in the history of the competition for the Transalpins. A new record that Roberto Mancini and his players would have done without.


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