Key events
Northern Ireland – who already knew they had to do without two of their biggest stars in captain Conor Bradley and defender Daniel Ballard – are also missing Ali McCann in midfield. The Preston midfielder hasn’t recovered in time from an injury picked up recently against Coventry City. Ballard’s Sunderland team-mate Trai Hume assumes captaincy duties. It’s a young team, with only Paddy McNair, 31 next month, over the age of 24.
Italy meanwhile are buoyed by the news that Sandro Tonali is fit to start. Riccardo Calafiori comes back into the side, while Moise Kean and Mateo Retegui pair up at the sharp end.
The teams
Italy: Donnarumma, Mancini, Bastoni, Calafiori, Politano, Barella, Locatelli, Tonali, Dimarco, Kean, Retegui.
Subs: Carnesecchi, Meret, Palestra, Spinazzola, Buongiorno, Raspadori, Pisilli, Esposito, Cristante, Frattesi, Gatti, Scalvini.
Northern Ireland: Pierce Charles, Hume, McNair, McConville, Devlin, Shea Charles, Galbraith, Devenny, Spencer, Price, Donley.
Subs: Peacock-Farrell, Hazard, Toal, Atcheson, Saville, Marshall, Kelly, Smyth, Lyons, Reid, Magennis, Brown.
Referee: Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
Preamble
“Bout ye, Italy?” To which the only honest answer is surely: we’ve felt better. Because while Italy go into tonight’s 2026 World Cup qualification semi-final with a 100-percent record at home to Northern Ireland, they have demons, baggage, and demons carrying baggage containing demons.
You see, the Azzurri are living in ABJECT FEAR OF FAILING TO QUALIFY FOR THE WORLD CUP FINALS FOR THE THIRD SUCCESSIVE TIME, and the implications of that for the four-time winners don’t bear thinking about. And while they’re hot favourites to clear this hurdle tonight, they were hot favourites to see off Sweden in these play-offs for Russia 2018, and hot favourites at home against North Macedonia for Qatar 2022, and look what happened there. So nobody’s taking anything for granted. Oh, and those aforementioned qualification disasters were only the second and third time Italy had ever failed to reach the World Cup finals. The first, back in 1958? Well that particular blow was dealt by …
… Northern Ireland! Of course it was. Settle down, children, and allow me to plagiarise myself tell you a story.
The Italian national team had a hard time of it for quite a while after the war. The 1948 Superga crash, which wiped out Torino, effectively did for the Azzurri too. A depleted team made their way to Brazil for the 1950 World Cup, but only by boat, understandably fearful of air travel. Knackered and unfit coming off the ship, they almost immediately got themselves knocked out. They travelled home by plane.
The 1954 tournament in Switzerland ended abruptly with a 4-1 trouncing at the hands of the hosts. Chile in 1962 was all about the shame of Santiago, though that was nothing on the humiliation North Korea heaped on them in 1966. After which the team won Euro 68 and made it to the final of the 1970 World Cup. All better, then, but by lord those two decades were quite the haul.
Italy only once failed to qualify for the World Cup during that 20-year nadir. (They’d made it to all the others with the exception of the very first one in 1930, a jamboree they didn’t bother to attend, in a fit of pique at being looked over for hosting duties in favour of Uruguay.) That blemish, the first on their qualification record, came in the 1958 series when their side – containing Uruguay’s 1950 stars Juan Alberto Schiaffino and Alcides Ghiggia – were bundled out of the competition by a formidable Northern Ireland team not short of a few decently sized names itself in Danny Blanchflower, Harry Gregg and Peter McParland.
The manner of Italy’s exit was nothing short of farcical. The teams were due to play the decisive qualifier at Windsor Park in early December 1957. A victory for the Irish would send them through; Italy needed a draw to put them in a position where a home win in their final game over a dismal Portugal would fire them to the finals in Sweden instead. But referee Istvan Zsolt had been held up en route from Hungary to Belfast by fog in London, and only a local official could be found to replace him. Five minutes before kick-off, it was announced that the game would only be a friendly, causing much bristling in the crowd who, according to the Guardian, seemed “unlikely to forget what they considered to be the intractability of the Italians over match arrangements and left no doubt that they felt they should have agreed to a British referee”. Aye, right you are.
And in fairness, the Italians had a point. Their keeper Ottavio Bugatti was knocked from pillar to post by the likes of McParland, who had form for this sort of nonsense, as those who recall the 1957 FA Cup final would testify. In the final minute of a 2-2 draw, Guiseppe Chiapella leapt at McParland after one charge too many, and was sent off. Not that the Italians had been saints themselves, mind, Chiapella, Schiaffino and Rino Ferrario all taking turns to throw hands in the determined style. At the final whistle, thousands of spectators flooded the field of play with a view to raising Cain. Ferrario was sent crashing to the floor and had to be carted back to the dressing room unconscious.
As it transpired, that result would have been enough for the Italians, who went on to beat Portugal 3-0 before Christmas. But decisions are decisions, and they were forced to go again. In the New Year, the rescheduled qualifier in Belfast was played, and the Irish stormed into a two-goal lead by half-time, Jimmy McIlroy and Wilbur Cush with the goals. Dino Da Costa bundled one back for Italy shortly after the break, but the ghig was up for Italy when Ghiggia, of all folk, was sent off with 25 minutes to go for a physical disagreement with Alf McMichael. Ireland were through, Italy were out, and what an end to a World Cup career for poor Ghiggia, the man who scored the most dramatic and far-reaching goal the tournament has ever seen.
But history is one thing, and the present something else entirely. This should be a home banker. Having said that, Italy were thrashed 4-1 at home by Norway in their previous match, while Northern Ireland are coming off the back of a 1-0 win over Luxembourg, all of which proves (a) Erling Haaland is one heck of a player, (b) you can only beat who are put in front of you, and (c) a win for the Green and White Army would be seismic. Kick-off is at 7.45pm GMT. It’s on!
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