World Cup play-offs, Italy find Northern Ireland. Gattuso: "We can play it"
The match will be played on 26 March, at the home of the Azzurri. The final playoff will be on 31 March against the winner of Wales-Bosnia
First Northern Ireland in the semi-final to be played at home, then an away one between Wales and Bosnia. A bittersweet draw at Fifa drew the ballot boxes - including Marco Materazzi's hand - for the playoffs to be played between 26 and 31 March. Gennaro Gattuso's Azzurri got off to a good start, avoiding in one fell swoop the semi-final against the dreaded Sweden, the architects of their elimination from Russia 2018, and then the eventual final with Poland, the very same finals that Azzurri head coach Gigi Buffon would also have wanted to avoid. The eventual final, however, will be away from home, in the infernal bowl of Cardiff or in Zenica, Bosnia. Gattuso does not even go that far, preferring to speak only of the next challenge, the only certainty for an Italy that, after two failed World Cup qualifiers, is now forced to fear even national teams that until recently seemed harmless: "We must only comment on the home match with Northern Ireland - says the coach - we play for everything, then the others are two good teams with totally different types of play. They are very strong physically, we will have to play a great game but I think we can play it". "The away final? We think about the first match, then we know what teams Wales and Bosnia are and the environment we will find. With Wales it is tough, there is a stadium that pushes, their style, but also in Bosnia, they are stadiums that can put any team in trouble. We go through the semifinals and then we will see who we will face and how we will face them".
For the home match against Northern Ireland, on the other hand, the FIGC is already at work to ensure that it can be played in Bergamo: "Yes, we have spoken about it with the president and all the FIGC officials, Bergamo has come up and we will see if we can play it there," nods Gattuso, much more interested in having as much time as possible to prepare his team for the (hopefully) double challenge. The Azzurri coach, going back to talking about the defeat against Norway clarifies: "It's a pity about the match the other day but maybe if it ended differently we thought we had improved and we don't have any more problems. From 4-1 all our fragility came out. I keep the first half that was done very, very well but you can't disappear from the field, we have to give a steering from this point of view".
Sunday's defeat could also have positive repercussions: "Every so often, as happened in the last match," emphasised the national team's head coach Buffon, "there is some mishap that causes us to fail to give continuity in performance. However, I believe that in all virtuous paths, at the moment when it seems that everything is going well, there always comes a mishap that can also be beneficial because it can make you rediscover the right humility and the right attention to face the continuation". For Buffon, however, Italy has all the cards in order to fly to America next summer: "Our destiny is to know that we have to face two games - because that is what we want to do and that is what we will do - in the best possible way, knowing that we have a very good chance of making it to the World Cup because we have shown it so many times.
Here is the complete picture of the world playoffs as far as Europe is concerned:
- Italy-Northern Ireland: the winner will take on the winner of Wales-Bosnia.
