Football can be fun and its unpredictability makes it more exciting as witnessed in the game between North Macedonia and Italy. A world cup semi-final playoff was scheduled for Portugal and Turkey and Italy and North Macedonia as well. In which the winner participates in the world cup 2022. The fixture's favorite was Italy which had recently won the Euros cup and could have easily progressed against the North Macedonian national team who on the other hand was a lower-ranked team by FIFA and started competitive football recently.

But the tie was predicted to be different when the North Macedonian side stunned the Italians on their own ground to deny them an entry into the world cup tournament for the second consecutive time. A low-driven shot by Aleksander Trajkovski in the dying minutes of the game was enough to send the Italians out. The North Macedonian team was successful in fending off all threats from the Italians with an impressive defensive organization. The Azzurri were the better side in dominating the game and deserved to score with having more shots on target than their opponent.

The last time Italy played a world cup game was on June 15 2014 against England as a group stage fixture. Italy becomes the third team not to play in the world cup after winning the Euros. Robert Mancini, the coach of Italy was disappointed after the game and apologized to both the fans and his players. Jorginho felt he will be haunted for the rest of his life for failing to score two crucial penalties, which would have made Italy qualify for the world cup.

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Prince Agbenyenu

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