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Journalism of Courage
The sense of disbelief hasn’t left English football media, as they keep wondering ‘Will Italy really not qualify for a third World Cup?’
Fox piled on with the headline: ‘Could Italy really miss the World Cup again?’ for effect.
Azzurri coach Gennaro Gattuso has joked these past few days he will put plenty of distance between himself and Italy geographically, should that wretched eventuality occur. But after missing 2018 and 2022 (worst possible year), a gloomy Sunday brought some speculated hope.
Italy will still need to actually seal that qualification, sitting as they do second with a massive goal deficit behind Norway, through playoffs.
But Football Italia quoted Sunday reports from Football Meets Data and Calcio e Finanza, reporting that FIFA was considering a change in seeding rule that could help Italy potentially at 2026 World Cup. Both reports were sprinkled with repeated disclaimers: “The Azzurri must first qualify through the playoffs, it’s always good to remember,” Calcio e Finanza stated.
Italy need Norway to drop points to Estonia to top the group, and themselves to beat Norway and Moldova. But realistically, things could get serious and existential on December 20 effectively when the final playoffs pan out, given Norway are +16 ahead on GD.
This playoff stage was where they stumbled last two times.
But FIFA’s proposed change could kick in after all this. Football Italia wrote, ‘Currently, teams who qualify for the World Cup through the play-off system are automatically placed into pot 4 when it comes to the draw for the group stage at the final tournament. That means that if Italy were to qualify via the play-offs, they would be among the lowest-ranked teams in the tournament, and would be drawn into a group with teams from pots 1, 2 and 3.’
Where FIFA’s move comes in, labelled ‘revolutionary’ and ‘paradigm shift’ by Football Italia themselves, is that the governing body could be considering a change in rule so that all four pots are determined by world rankings. Pots 1, 2 and 3, are decided by the current world ranking.
Quoting reports from Football Meets Data and Calcio e Finanza, it is speculated that Italy might avert Pot 4 and be thrown into Pot 1 if rankings are applied to all pots, which means that they would avoid having to face any of the other top seeds at the World Cup group stage – assuming with a capital A that they qualify.
The draw will take place in Washington on December 5. “But if there were a paradigm shift, with all the qualifiers placed in the various pots based on their ranking, the Azzurri would find themselves in the top pot with the other top seeds, thus avoiding having to find one in their group and potentially having having, at least on paper, an easier start to the tournament,” Calcio e Finanza, wrote.
“It is worth reiterating that this is only a hypothesis, but one that FIFA is considering in the coming weeks, which are effectively the last ones to decide on a possible change to the rules,” the report added hopefully.
If a qualified Italy is dunked into Pot 1, Germany would automatically be relegated to Pot 2, as per Football Data website. “Paradoxically becoming one of the possible opponents for the top seeds in Pot 1. This would activate a ranking system with Austria in Pot 3 and potentially Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, and Nigeria (all of whom would have to qualify through the playoffs) promoted to Pot 3. Pot 3 would consist of Tunisia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Uzbekistan, based on the teams already qualified,” It added.
Meanwhile Gattuso called up Gianluca Scamacca and Alessandro Buongiorno on Friday, in a surprise move for Italy’s qualifying group games against Moldova and Norway.
It is estimated tgat around 17 million Italian heritage people live in the USA, including second most prominentbethniv group in New York after Dominican Americans.
However, Italy first need to qualify.
