And the shorter wait is the one that deserves much more scrutiny. It was the second in successive World Cups for Northern Ireland, who last appeared on the biggest stage four decades ago. Any regret about finishing third in a group with Brazil and Spain was tempered by the expectation of an imminent return. There has been no additional seat at the international football dining table.
That World Cup hiatus under Italy’s belt includes failure to qualify in 2018 and 2022 (those two previous occasions were only marginally less miserable). For the tournament’s four-time winners and a football-obsessed nation, this is an affront. It brings intense pressure. Either Italy or Northern Ireland will take the dreams of World Cup qualification into full-time when the whistle shrieks in Bergamo on Thursday night.
No one involved with Gli Azzurri is looking to downplay the significance of what stands before them. “This is the biggest game of my coaching career so far,” Gennaro Gattuso says. “A big goal of ours is to return back to where we were for many years and have a starring role there, too.”
Mateo Retegui did the same theme. “This is it: the biggest week of the whole season for all of us, every single player,” the striker says. Retegui’s club commitments are domestically in the Saudi Pro League, but this was still some statement. “Now is the time to show everybody who we really are.”
Gattuso was a notoriously terrible sleeper player. It may, then, be unfair to read greater anxiety at this point. Gattuso paid a pre‑match tribute to Italy’s team doctor for night aids. “The older I get, the more assistance I require. Otherwise, at 4.30am or 5am I am awake — like a bat,” says Gattuso. “I am prepared. I promise, I’m thinking positively. I want to think big.” It is only that the 48‑year‑old man appears a man weighed down by his task, just half a dozen matches into his stint as Italy’s coach. Even if Northern Ireland are vanquished, the prospect of Wales or Bosnia away is no formality.
It has been a “shock,” the head coach acknowledges, for Italian systems to go long without a World Cup appearance. He raised the trophy in 2006, for crying out loud. Gattuso did not blame the Italian fans for holding their country’s team in such low regard; hosting this tie at Atalanta, where attendance levels under 25,000 are standard, looks like a tale of ambivalence.
If they could, Italy would surely have tried to disturb Northern Ireland with the environment in Milan, Naples or Rome. In beautiful, elegant Bergamo you have to go some way to believe a football match is ever happening.
“The responsibility in this case is up to us, the supporters have nothing to do with this,” Gattuso says. “The past has two great disappointments behind it but we can’t afford to focus on what didn’t work, now is the time to look ahead. Now it is about who we are trying to target. This is crucial for us.”
Among visiting journalists Gattuso raised eyebrows by gesturing toward the probable direction of Northern Ireland. “They usually ‘ping the ball into the box,’ as they say in the British Isles. They pack eight or nine men in the box and feast off second balls. Direct, vertical football. For now just know that I haven’t seen a team that doesn’t have to keep the ball and drag you around in midfield.”
Gattuso – who was never mistaken for Michel Platini when he ranged across a pitch in his pomp – does not mean to offend. His analysis was perfectly fair. “Italy also plays a fair amount of long diagonal balls,” says Northern Ireland’s manager, Michael O’Neill, with a smile.
And Conor Bradley and Dan Ballard would be no guarantee of outsiders to his XI. O’Neill had long accounted for Bradley’s absence, but the loss of Ballard, who picked up a hamstring injury after this squad was unveiled, feels more acute. Given the absence of resources available to him, O’Neill has constantly performed miracles with his country and what he has in back‑up is decidedly thin. Even considering the pressure on Italy to finally come good, it would be an extraordinary upset if Northern Ireland went through.
“What we must do is play the game, without thinking of what’s at stake,” O’Neill says. “The expectation is clearly with the home nation. “I have a ton of faith in this group. It is going to be a young team; where you have advantages with youth is they are fearless. We have everything to gain. This will be a massive test but one I think we are prepared for.”
An Italian victory would almost certainly spell the end of O’Neill’s competitive reign with the manager, for now, attempting to juggle duties with an effort to extend Blackburn’s stay in the Championship. In the long run, a dual role is untenable.
“We are the masters of our own fate,” Gattuso said. “We know exactly what we need to do. We must also be fully prepared knowing that we will face players who would want to tear off flesh and blood. We cannot underestimate the opposing forces. Yes, they are Northern Ireland … but how did they reach this point?” Should they advance further Italy will face its latest, shivering football fallout.