Italy 0-1 North Macedonia: Trajkovski leaves European champions out of the World Cup

From Hell to Heaven and back to Hell. Italy missed the 2018 World Cup, won Euro 2020 and will miss the 2022 World Cup! Aleksandar Trajkovski’s long shot into the delays wrote that 1-0 for North Macedonia at “Renzo Barbera” and has so far caused the big surprise of the barrage.

The “squadra azura” was better, but very wasteful in its possibilities and paid for it in the end. North Macedonia are preparing for their current battle against Portugal in Tuesday’s final in Porto for a place in Qatar.

Italy had the upper hand early on on the field, with the… blessing of the visitors. Their defensive function was quite good and their main goal was to block places for Lorenzo Insigne and Domenico Berardi.

A mistake by Stole Dimitrievski nearly ended the plan but the North Macedonia keeper’s pass to Berardi was denied by the Italian striker from Sassuolo.

This phase woke up the Italians, who became too dangerous, but Dimitrievski was quite focused from then on and beyond, keeping the first half from zero.

In the second part, the “Truppe Azura” continued to push and provided good moments. Berardi and Insigne when they went wide and when they fell victim to a good position from the opponent who blocked their efforts.

Giacomo Raspadori’s cross did little to alter the hosts’ accuracy, while Lorenzo Pellegrini and Sandro Tonali tried to keep the ball out of the North Macedonians’ box. Blagoja Milevski’s players continued to defend massively, but also correctly. Despite only having three finals in 90 minutes, they didn’t seem to care just to keep the zero.

They didn’t succeed. On the attack! A long-range effort from Trajkovski in the 2nd minute of delay defeated Gianluigi Donaroma 1-0 and caused… an invasion of the bench to celebrate. When the game started again, Italy had one last chance, but again a counter plan went awry.

1-0 was a fact. North Macedonia reached the final of the play-offs, where they meet Portugal in the ‘Dragao’, while Italy suffered their first defeat in World Cup qualifiers after 48 wins and 11 draws.

ITALY: Donaroma, Florenzi, Mancini (90′ Chiellini), Bastoni, Emerson, Barela (77′ Tonali), Zorginio, Verratti, Berardi (89′ Joao Pedro), Imobile (77′ Pellegrini), Insigne (64)

NORTH MACEDONIA: Dimitrievski, S. Ristovski, Velkovsky (86′ Ristevski), Musliu, Alioski, Tsurlinov, Antemi (59′ Askovski), Bardi, Nikolov (59′ Spirovski), M. Ristovsky (72′)