Thursday 26 March 2026, 22:45 Moscow time. Play-off. Qualifying semi-final

Stadium: Atleti Azzurri d'Italia (Bergamo, Italy), capacity: 24,000

Italy vs Northern Ireland

Italy face a match in which the score on the board will mean less than the expressions on their faces at 0:0 in the sixtieth minute.

After two World Cups missed in a row, an evening like this has long stopped being about status, about the name or even about class.

It's a match in which the whole country will be watching not so much the opponent as a familiar fear: can they really miss out on the World Cup again?

Northern Ireland are exactly the kind of opponent against whom a favourite easily starts strangling itself.

They will almost certainly give up the ball, sit deep and wait for Italy to slide into mindless possession for its own sake, crosses without an idea and nervous haste.

In games like this, class on its own guarantees nothing: once you start to panic, the match immediately becomes small, sticky and alien.

And that is precisely the scenario this Italy has fallen into far too often.

So what Italy need here is not beauty but order.

3-5-2, high wing-backs, pressure through the flanks, but with proper cover behind the ball.

Not just loading everything into the box, but constantly changing the rhythm of the attack: a cut-back, a second wave, a run from deep, a quick switch.

Otherwise Northern Ireland get exactly what they want: a predictable game in which they can hang on, cling to set pieces and live off a single moment.

Hence the key men are clear straight away.

Dimarco has to open things up on the left, Barella to add tempo and a second wave, Retegui to finish and hold the ball up in the box.

But the main test for Italy isn't that at all.

The main test is not to gift the opponent that one transition, that one set piece, that one moment after which everything starts shaking again.

Because Northern Ireland are dangerous precisely when they look harmless: they don't need a good match, they need one unpleasant incident after which the favourite starts twitching by itself.

And here, for Italy, it all comes down not only to the system but to patience.

If it's still 0:0 in the 60th minute, they mustn't tip into hysteria and confuse pressure with chaos.

Matches like this are won not by the number of crosses or the size of the possession, but by the quality of the next decision.

Sometimes the best sign of control isn't attacking endlessly, but not letting the game turn into a lottery.

Even the whole atmosphere around the national team says the same thing: right now you want to tuck Italy away a little from the extra pressure, from the whistles, from the weight of its own name, which is exactly why the game was moved to a small stadium in Bergamo.

And that, on the whole, is the most honest description of its state: a great national team that hasn't felt great for a long time.

The main storyline here isn't Northern Ireland as such.

The main storyline is that Italy have once again come to the edge and once again have to prove they can even withstand evenings like this.

And that is the whole point of Italy right now: they need to be grown-up, not beautiful.

Not to impress, not to play "on reputation", not to evoke the old days, but simply not to fall apart from their own anxiety.

Because if Italy miss the World Cup again, it will no longer be a slip.

It will be a diagnosis.