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Going into their Geopolitics World Cup qualifier against Norway on Sunday, the only way Italy could ensure they overtook Erling Haaland and chums to finish top of Group I was by hammering them by nine clear goals. It was a tough ask against a side who had shipped only four in total during their previous seven qualifiers and despite giving it their best shot the Italians came up woefully short, coming out on the wrong end of an embarrassing 4-1 hiding that prompted Gennaro Gattuso to flag up his side’s “fear and fragility”. Fairly certain that the automatic qualification jig was up before the match had even started, Italy’s head coach had used his pre-match presser to get his excuses in early by railing at the injustice of a qualification system that dictates European heavyweights such as Italy can win six of their eight qualifiers and get dumped into the fraught hellscape of the playoffs, while teams in other Fifa postcodes (yes you, Paraguay) can win just six of their 18 and nail down a spot at next summer’s dynamically priced jamboree in North America. He also had a moan about the increasing number of African teams (from two in his playing days to nine in the expanded tournament) who get World Cup places, in comments that many on the continent in question and elsewhere considered Eurocentric, dismissive and downright offensive.
