North Macedonia sink Italy’s World Cup bid; Portugal beat Türkiye

Italy will miss their second World Cup in a row after slumping to a shock 1-0 play-off semi-final defeat to North Macedonia while Portugal have survived a second-half fightback to beat Türkiye 3-1 and advance to the finals of the European World Cup qualifying play-offs. 

Aleksandar Trajkovski’s low drive in the second minute of stoppage time stunned the European champions in Palermo and set-up a qualifying final with Portugal in Porto on Tuesday for a chance to be in Qatar in November.

Roberto Mancini’s side were loudly booed off after a defeat on Thursday which means Italy will have to wait until at least 2026 to see its national team at a World Cup.

By then it will have been 12 years since the Azzurri’s last participation in the world’s biggest football tournament after they failed to qualify for the 2018 edition, also crashing out in the play-offs on that occasion.

“It’s hard to explain, it’s such a huge disappointment,” Giorgio Chiellini said to RAI.

“We played well but we just failed to score the goal. We’ve made mistakes since September and we’ve paid for them. We’re distraught.”

Italy, as predicted, dominated the play but as has been the case in recent matches struggled to break down a resolute away side and when presented with chances were not clinical enough to take them.

Portugal beat Türkiye 3-1 to edge closer to World Cup

Meanwhile, Portugal moved one step closer to reaching the World Cup with a 3-1 win over Türkiye, whose striker Burak Yilmaz skied a penalty five minutes from fulltime that would have drawn the sides level in their playoff semi-final on Thursday.

Roared by a sold-out Dragao Stadium in Porto, Portugal dominated the game from the start and went 2-0 up in the first half after Otavio scored one goal and created another for Diogo Jota.

But Fernando Santos’s side were pegged back by a Yilmaz goal in 65th minute that put the Portuguese fans on the edge of their seats as Türkiye started to threaten.

Defender Jose Fonte then foulled Enes Unal inside the area in the 85th minute to concede a penalty that Yilmaz fired high over the bar.

Portugal substitute Matheus Nunes relieved the pressure on the hosts in added time with their third goal from a counterattack.

After missing out on automatic qualification in November, they will now host North Macedonia on Tuesday with the winner qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. 

Source: TRTWorld and agencies