soccer

🇮🇹 Italy, believe! Northern Ireland changes everything, here's why 💪

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🇮🇹 Italy, believe! Northern Ireland changes everything, here's why 💪 Match day for Gennaro Gattuso’s Italy national team, who tonight at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo against Northern Ireland want to wipe away the memories of the last two playoffs. Watch all Serie BKT live on OneFootball for just €9.

99 a month. Click here to buy the LaB Channel Monthly Pass with no automatic renewal. Still fresh in the minds of the players — and really of every Italian — is the elimination at the hands of North Macedonia , who in 2022 won at Palermo’s Barbera and plunged us back into the sporting nightmare we had experienced four years earlier at San Siro against Sweden.

A lot of time has passed since then, yet we find ourselves in the same situation, having to hope we can secure qualification that, until 2017, we always took for granted . There are plenty of reasons, however, to look at tomorrow night’s match with optimism. 💪 Italy, believe because...

First of all, the Azzurri are stronger. Of the possible opponents in this playoff, Italy have definitely drawn the easier one. Tonight we face a team ranked 69th in the FIFA rankings, whose best player — Liverpool full-back Conor Bradley — is injured; After the two huge disappointments of the past, we can rule out even the slightest risk of underestimating the opponent.

Italy go into the Bergamo match aware that they are no longer a powerhouse and therefore that they must earn qualification the hard way. Given the previous results, that’s probably for the best; We like the squad picked by Gattuso. It’s true, there has been debate over a couple of omissions, but after years in the dark, we once again have three forwards who can really excite us.