Italy failed to beat Northern Ireland and will have to overcome the playoff to be in Qatar 2022

Italy, current European champion, must play the repechage to try to qualify for the Qatar-2022 World Cup, when they drew goalless on Monday against Northern Ireland in Belfast, a result that Switzerland took advantage of the direct ticket by defeating Bulgaria 4-0 in Lucerne.

With these results, Italy lost the first place in group C and finished second with 16 points, while Switzerland finished with 18, a leadership synonymous with being in Qatar within a year.

Away from the team that amazed the continent by lifting the European Championship in July, Italy played under great pressure, signing a disappointing match, in which they nevertheless had some chances, solved without problems by the Northern Irish goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell, in the image of the shot by Federico Chiesa in the 38th minute.

The failure of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, of which he was left out in the play-off after 60 years of continuous presence, together with the penalty that Jorginho missed on Friday against Switzerland (1-1), which meant qualification for Qatar-2022, they were two slabs that weighed the team led by Roberto Mancini.

To harden the ‘via crucis’, Switzerland scored the goal that gave him the virtual classification at the beginning of the second half (48), when a great center from Xherdan Shaqiri headed him with class Noah Okafor.

After the goal, Shaqiri had the sentence but found the post, as Okafor had already done just before the break (45), with a cross shot in which the ball then walked over the goal line.

In the second half, Switzerland was a gale and quickly it was 2-0 (57), with a powerful shot from Rubén Vargas in a very fast play.

While in Belfast Italy he continued to suffer, with Chiesa unable to square a shot with a thread, his great specialty (62).

Two consecutive goals canceled by Switzerland for offside gave Italy a ball of oxygen, since at 3-0 it was not even worth scoring a goal against Northern Ireland.

But the ‘Nati’ was unleashed and Renato Steffen combined with Shaqiri before centering for Cedric Itten to achieve the third header (71).

Italy needed two goals in the last 20 minutes. The miracle was far from coming, with Ireland even having a clear option to score, and the European champion will have to overcome a difficult play-off in March – two single-match qualifiers – to be in Qatar-2022.

On the other hand, Switzerland completed their party in the small Lucerne stadium with a fourth goal, scored by Remo Freuler (90 + 1). (D)