Just eight months after winning Euro 2020, Italy found a way to humiliate itself again.
The reigning European champion failed to qualify for the World Cup for a second consecutive time, falling 1-0 to North Macedonia in Thursday’s qualifying playoff. Aleksandar Trajkovski scored in the 92nd minute to hand North Macedonia the biggest victory in its young history as an independent nation.
Italy outshot its opponent 32-4 in Palermo, but only five of its shots hit the target. North Macedonia, meanwhile, blocked 16 shots in a resilient performance that far surpasses its 2-1 win over Germany earlier in World Cup qualifying.
“We won the Italian way against the Italians, a goal from just two shots (on target),” Blagoja Milevski, North Macedonia’s head coach, said.
Fans booed Italy off the field after showing incredible support before and during the match. The disappointment mirrored that which followed Italy’s 1-0 aggregate loss to Sweden in November 2017, a result that caused the Azzurri to miss the World Cup for the first time since 1958.
It’s now making a habit of it.
Italy is just the fourth team to win the Euro and fail to qualify for the World Cup, joining the Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Greece.
Few could have expected such a swing in fortune for the national team. Italy beat England on penalties to win Euro 2020 in July, capping a renaissance that began shortly after Roberto Mancini took over as manager in May 2018. It built a 37-match unbeaten streak under his supervision, but signs of complacency began to show in World Cup qualifying.
Despite going undefeated in Group C, Mancini’s side dropped crucial points against Bulgaria and Northern Ireland, and draws against Switzerland allowed the Swiss to win the group. Jorginho, one of the best penalty takers in the game, famously missed spot-kicks in both games against Switzerland to deny Italy an automatic berth in Qatar.
Similar frustrations set in Thursday as Italy launched wave after wave of attack. The Azzurri often resorted to speculative crosses into the penalty area, a tactic that suited North Macedonia’s taller defenders just fine.
Domenico Berardi squandered a golden opportunity in the 29th minute when he scuffed an attempt off goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski’s giveaway in the area. Berardi steered a feeble shot at the open goal, allowing Dimitrievski time to get back into position.
With five minutes of added time, Trajkovski, who played for Palermo from 2015-19, sparked scenes of jubilation in North Macedonia’s dugout with a long-range strike that eluded Gianluigi Donnarumma’s grasp and sent the host back into despair.
“The victory in the Euros was the most wonderful moment of my career,” Mancini said afterward. “What happened this evening is my biggest disappointment.”
Roberto Mancini made the same mistake as his predecessor. Just as Gian Piero Ventura had done in 2017, Mancini guaranteed the Azzurri would, one way or another, make it to the World Cup.
“We’ll book our place in the World Cup in March and hopefully win the tournament, too,” the 57-year-old declared in November.
Italy didn’t deliver in 2017, and it failed again in 2022.
Thursday’s scarcely believable 1-0 loss to North Macedonia means Italy will miss its second straight World Cup. In just eight short months, Mancini’s side has gone from the high of winning Euro 2020 to the low of another miserable World Cup qualifying campaign.
It’s a brutal fall from grace for a team that had, up until recently, recaptured its sense of place in the international game. The inquisition that followed Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was agonizing. Talking heads and politicians blamed foreigners for suffocating the development of homegrown talent, while former players criticized Italy’s footballing establishment for keeping the same people in the same jobs, regardless of performance.
Changes were made across the board: Carlo Tavecchio resigned as president of the Italian football federation, with incumbent Gabriele Gravina replacing him in 2018; Mancini replaced Ventura as head coach; and several World Cup winners, including Gianluigi Buffon, Daniele De Rossi, and Andrea Barzagli, announced their retirement from international duty. Younger players began to flourish under Mancini’s leadership, and Italy started to play an attacking brand of football that both excited fans and delivered results.
Italy went a record 37 matches without defeat from March 2019 to October 2021, demonstrating an uncharacteristic knack for goals. It no longer struggled to blow out inferior opponents, something it had struggled to do even during its heyday. Italy, which routinely found a way to make the easy feel impossible, was finally playing with some swagger.
VINCENZO PINTO / AFP / Getty
Winning Euro 2020 was never the main objective. Mancini said he was originally targeting success at the 2022 World Cup. All he wanted to do was make the players believe in themselves again. They felt lighter, entering games without the weight of expectation. Mancini gave them the license to do what Italian teams traditionally didn’t: attack teams and dominate matches. Italy didn’t have to protect 1-0 leads to be successful anymore. With pacy wingers, like Federico Chiesa, and energetic midfielders in Marco Verratti and Nicolo Barella, the Azzurri had the pieces to play more expansive football – and thrive while doing it.
But even as Italy hurdled opponents on the way to the final at Wembley Stadium, it began to show cause for concern. Leonardo Spinazzola’s injury in the quarterfinal win over Belgium – an Achilles tear that continues to keep him on the sidelines – robbed Mancini of his biggest threat on the left flank. Without his starting left-back bombing forward, opponents could play narrower and leave the wings unattended.
Spain outplayed Italy in the semifinal, but the Azzurri escaped on penalty kicks. Although Mancini’s team rebounded in the final, it seemed to lose the swashbuckling style that made its football – and victories – possible. Scoring suddenly became a chore: Italy managed just 13 goals over nine World Cup qualifiers, a pitiful return for a team that banged in 37 in 10 Euro qualifiers not long ago.
Ciro Immobile’s struggles up front didn’t help. Despite scoring upwards of 20 goals per season with Lazio, Immobile continued to look anemic in international fixtures. Mancini persisted with the 32-year-old, if only because there was no better alternative. Moise Kean, Mario Balotelli, Giacomo Raspadori, and Andrea Belotti all earned call-ups over the last few months, but none of them made a good enough pitch to stay. Gianluca Scamacca, Sassuolo’s burgeoning 23-year-old striker, was beginning to make a case, but an injury compromised his participation in Thursday’s playoff.
Italy’s problems multiplied in the aftermath of its celebration in Rome. It slumped to a 1-1 draw with lowly Bulgaria in its first game after winning Euro 2020, and its best players seemed to lose the hunger that made them champions in the first place. Jorginho, an exceptional penalty-taker, missed two spot-kicks in games against Switzerland. Had he made either of them, Italy would’ve qualified.
It would be easy to scapegoat Jorginho, or Immobile, or Mancini, or blame it all on the season-ending injury to Chiesa that prevented him from playing down the stretch. Jorginho admitted those misses will haunt him for the rest of his life. Immobile may never captain Italy again. Mancini could, and probably will, resign. Maybe Chiesa would’ve scored another big goal if he were healthy.
The fact remains this team lost its way. Italy still dominated matches, but when things didn’t go its way, it failed to adapt. The more chances Italy wasted, the more desperate it got and the more prone it became to counterattacks and lapses in concentration.
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Italy’s devolution happened over time, not in one particular game. Mancini said his players could’ve played another half-hour against Bulgaria, and “the ball wouldn’t have gone in.” Frustrated, Mancini decided Italy would face Northern Ireland without a striker, a tactic that ultimately backfired in a drab affair that finished goalless. Then, Aleksandar Trajkovski scored for North Macedonia in the 92nd minute of Thursday’s playoff, cashing in on a straightforward goal kick that neither Jorginho nor Alessandro Bastoni could corral.
A familiar storyline played out in Palermo. Italy outshot North Macedonia 32-4, but only five of its shots hit the target. Many more were blocked. With no way through, the midfielders and full-backs hurled in crosses with reckless abandon, knowing full well North Macedonia’s taller, more physical defenders would have no problem clearing the lines. It felt a lot like the goalless draw against Sweden in 2017: all huff and no puff.
“From the European Championships onwards, perhaps the luck that accompanied us turned into bad luck,” Mancini said. “Now, we need to know how to suffer.”
UEFA threatened to suspend the Russian Football Union’s UEFA and FIFA memberships after the country’s soccer body formally declared an interest in hosting either Euro 2028 or Euro 2032.
Russia was banned from international and continental club competitions on Feb. 28 over its invasion of Ukraine.
“The UEFA Executive Committee will … remain on standby to convene further extraordinary meetings, on a regular ongoing basis where required, to reassess the legal and factual situation as it evolves and adopt further decisions as necessary, including in light of the declaration of interest expressed by the Russian Football Union (RFU) for hosting the UEFA Euro,” UEFA said in a statement Wednesday, according to The Guardian’s Paul MacInnes.
Russia’s current punishment resulted in the men’s team’s removal from the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. The country is also barred from this summer’s European Women’s Championship in England and from its youth teams’ qualifiers for European Championships of various age groups.
Spartak Moscow were unable to continue their Europa League journey; their last-16 opponents, RB Leipzig, were given a bye to the quarterfinals.
The RFU said it would “support the decision to declare interest” in hosting the 2028 or 2032 European Championship following a meeting of its executive members earlier Wednesday, The Associated Press’ Rob Harris reports. RFU board member Sergei Anokhin reportedly told Match TV an official bid will be filed with UEFA.
Russia already has the facilities in place to host a major football tournament after it staged the 2018 World Cup in 12 venues across 11 different cities. The 2022 Champions League final was scheduled to be played in Saint Petersburg but was moved to the Stade de France, located just north of Paris, in February due to the war in Ukraine.
The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland have pledged to launch a joint bid to host the European Championship in 2028, while Turkey has declared its interest in staging either the 2028 or 2032 edition. Italy is competing to host the tournament in 2032.
No one thinks about NFL overtime until it happens, which isn’t that often in the grand scheme of things and is usually pretty tame when it does. But all hell breaks loose when the format impacts the outcome of a playoff game, as it did in January’s divisional matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. And so here we are in March, once again trying to figure out if there is a better way to do it.
The NFL tweaked its overtime rules in 2010, 2012 and 2017, putting the current debate right on schedule. At issue is whether it’s still tenable for a team to win on the first possession of overtime, as the Chiefs did while Bills quarterback Josh Allen and his offense stood on the sideline and watched without getting a chance to match.
The existing rule allows a team to win on the first possession if it scores a touchdown. Otherwise, both teams get a possession, and the game is either decided by sudden death or ends in a tie (unless it’s a postseason game). The Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles have combined on a proposal that mandates a possession for each team, regardless of what happens on the first possession. The Tennessee Titans have proposed requiring a 2-point conversion after a touchdown for a team to win on its first possession.
The league’s competition committee has yet to weigh in on either proposal, or make any of its own, as the owners prepare to gather next week for their annual meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. NFL rule changes require approval from at least 24 owners.
2 Related
A possible compromise is to focus on a rule change for the playoffs only. Since the current requirement for an opening-possession touchdown was instituted for the 2012 regular season, teams winning the coin toss have won 50% of the time, according to league data. That number has ticked up a bit to 54% since the league shortened overtime from a maximum of 15 minutes to 10 in 2017, but there has been a big jump in the postseason. Since the current format was implemented, seven of 12 overtime postseason games have been won on the opening possession, and 10 of those 12 were won by the team that won the coin toss.
Part of the issue is that the NFL has tried to balance various and competing priorities for overtime. Is it trying to optimize fairness? Entertainment? Does it want to stay true to regulation formats? Should postseason games have a separate set of rules?
What about avoiding ties? Since reducing overtime to 10 minutes in 2017, the NFL has had five ties in 64 overtime games, a rate of 7.8%. From 2000 to 2016, there were a total of seven ties in 270 overtime games (2.6%).
What follows is an evaluation — pros, cons and grades — of the majority of overtime possibilities, some of which
Pros: This adds strategy and lowers the impact of luck as a factor in determining the opening possession, in theory making it fairer. Also, it would potentially be more entertaining.
Cons: Ultimately, it would lead to homogenous coin-toss decisions. Smart teams would identify the yard line where neither team would have an advantage — probably around the 13-15-yard line — and the coin-toss winner would likely make that the start of the opening possession most every time. It introduces an approach that isn’t used at other points in a game. Also, this format would heavily favor teams that embrace analytic thinking, which as we know is not all of them. Ties aren’t addressed here, either.
Grade: B. This structure is innovative but ultimately had no support when the Baltimore Ravens proposed it in 2021. NFL owners and their advisers aren’t ready to accept rules based on game theory, or even those that look like it — at least not yet.
Full OT period with no sudden death
What would happen: The teams would play a fifth quarter, be it 15 minutes or perhaps 10, and the team that is leading when the clock expires would win.
Pros: It’s exceedingly fair and reflects the structure of other games such as basketball. In suggesting this approach earlier this month, Buffalo’s Beane said: “[T]hat way, both teams will definitely have a chance and maybe even more than one possession.” It’s as close to following the structure of regulation as you can get. Remember, sudden death introduces a convenient but ultimately unique way of determining the outcome.
Cons: This brings a guarantee of longer games and would serve as a detriment to player health — and potentially entertainment value, as well. There could still be ties, even after the additional time and plays. And you would probably see a determined effort by teams in possession to drain the clock, which would detract from the point of adding a full-time period.
Grade: C. This approach could be an option for a playoff-only proposal, but to play a full 10 or 15 extra minutes in the regular season is probably too much football from a variety of perspectives. There are more efficient ways to declare a winner.
Shootout
What would happen: Broadly speaking, each team gets a certain number of red zone (or near-red zone) plays to score. This general format has been used at the high school and college levels, as well as by some alternative pro leagues. The specifics can vary, including requirements to use a 2-point conversion, but in most scenarios, the sides alternate until one team has more points than the other at the end of a round. (The new USFL will use a best-of-three-round format.)
