Game seven of Gennaro Gattuso’s Italy tenure delivered comfort. In number eight, he will look to end the painful wait of a nation by returning his country to the World Cup for the first time since 2014. Northern Ireland’s future, a bright one with this young squad, now means looking towards Euro 2028. This was simply a campaign too soon.
Gattuso has a stated aim of making World Cup impact, not simply qualifying. There were long spells in this playoff when the coach’s aspirations felt ludicrous. Perhaps Italy laboured, especially in the first half, under expectation. Yet it is an undoubted truism that they will require a huge uplift in performance level to feature prominently in the summer. Had Northern Ireland snatched the opening goal here, Italy would have been in serious bother.
Instead, the Italians are due credit for taking on board whatever half-time message Gattuso delivered. Long before the end, the coach was able to make changes with Tuesday evening in mind. Gattuso has lost just one of his septet of matches in charge. With Gianluigi Buffon alongside him in the dugout, Gattuso looks to be calling upon the right people for advice.
Fans had lined the streets to cheer the Italian team as they arrived at the Stadio de Bergamo. Gattuso would have been well aware of the likely scale of reaction upon exiting in the event of defeat. The 48-year-old wore the look of a man conscious of the burden of expectation as he completed pre-match media duties. Not only was the absence from a third World Cup in succession an unthinkable concept but a loss to the team ranked 67th among international teams be a further, serious blow to Italian footballing self-esteem. Northern Ireland looked highly favourable opposition; Michael O’Neill was already without Conor Bradley and Daniel Ballard before Ali McCann failed to recover from injury in time to feature in Bergamo. Sandro Tonali, who missed Newcastle’s weekend loss to Sunderland, returned to take his spot in the Italy midfield.
