By Anna Italia
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Italian Soccer Serie A
A sweet and sour feeling after the World Cup Qualifier ended with a 1-1 draw against Switzerland on Friday 12 November 2021 at the Olimpico di Roma Stadium. The sweet note is that Italy did not lose the game, the sour note is Jorginho failing to convert a penalty in the 90th minute which could have given Italy the victory. Jo After missing from the spot in Basel, Jorginho again failed to convert the spot-kick tonight too. And so we will have to wait until Monday for the outcome of group C.
FIFA World Cup Qualifier: Result ITALY 1 – 1 SWITZERLAND, Friday 12 November 2021
Italy Head Coach Roberto Mancini, commenting after the game, “Unfortunately, that’s how things are. We missed a penalty in the reverse fixture and on tonight. If we’d scored them both, the job would already be done. Jorginho is one of our penalty takers – he wanted to take it and it’s right that he did so. We struggled in the first half; the goal set the tone. We did well after the break; we didn’t back down and only the goal was missing. I am still confident; we’ll get up for it on the final matchday.” Nothing should be taken for granted, not even a potential Swiss victory over a side that has nothing left to play for: “Bulgaria could win too.”
👉 FIFA World Cup Qualifier Group C, Italy leading with 15 points (after Matchday 7)
| group c standing | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | For | Against | Goal difference | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 2 | 11 | 15 |
| 🇨🇭 Switzerland | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 2 | 9 | 15 |
| Northern Ireland | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 8 |
| 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 10 | -4 | 8 |
| 🇱🇹 Lithuania | 8 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 19 | -15 | 3 |
Leonardo Bonucci, who produced a vital intervention in injury time, is optimistic too: “Against Northern Ireland, we’ll put in the performance that we would have with a win here tonight. This is our mentality: playing to win and going to the World Cup. Today, we only took two shots and didn’t have enough bite. We now need to look ahead to Monday and recover our energy.” Jorginho, one of the stars of Italy’s triumph at the European Championship, should not be blamed: “He takes our penalties and will continue to do so – this can happen. We need to move forwards; as a team, as a group, as a family, we can get to the World Cup.”
Giovanni Di Lorenzo expressed his support for Jorginho too: “He’s a great champion and our penalty taker. We’ll help him to get through this moment. I’m happy with the goal but the happiness is halved because of the draw. We were a bit tense on the pitch tonight and we allowed them to have one counter-attack too many. Once we ironed these problems out, we played well.” The important thing is to focus on the next 90 minutes, which will be decisive in qualification for Qatar 2022: “We have a difficult game coming up on Monday. We have two days to prepare and we absolutely need to win in order to qualify.”
Photo via twitter.com/Azzurri_En/