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Pre-match review
In the opening match of Group I, despite dominating the ball control at Ullevaal Stadium in Oslo, Italy had a disappointing performance when Norway took a 3-goal lead in the first half.
Hit by counter-attack after counter-attack, the Azzurri failed to create any threat up front, with substitute Lorenzo Lucca's stoppage-time header being their only shot on target on a frustrating day.
Although there are still 7 matches ahead, the possibility that Italy will not win a direct ticket to next year's World Cup is very high, because coach Luciano Spalletti's team is 9 points behind the leading team Norway.
With Estonia and Moldova being heavy underdogs, the play-off race is likely to be a tight one between Italy and Israel.
Italy last made it to the 2024 World Cup in Brazil, where they were eliminated in the group stage. Since then, the four-time world champions have been desperate to return to the world's biggest stage.
Previously, Italy was eliminated by Sweden in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and lost to North Macedonia in the 2022 World Cup play-offs.
These consecutive defeats put heavy pressure on coach Spalletti, who announced that he would leave the Italian national team after the match against Moldova. The former Napoli coach is expected to hold an urgent meeting with the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) immediately after this match to reassess the situation.
According to insiders, despite receiving "orders" to win to keep the slim hope of advancing, the match result will not change coach Spalletti's decision to leave the Azzurri hot seat.
After a disappointing Euro 2024 campaign and a quarter-final exit from the UEFA Nations League this year, Italy are facing the biggest shock in their history. Now is the time to make amends in the final match of Spalletti's reign, to end a challenging journey with a beautiful farewell.
As for Moldova, despite Italy's disappointing form, they are still the underdogs. Moldova and Italy are currently at the bottom of Group I with 0 points. Moldova started their qualifying campaign with a 0-5 defeat to Norway and a 2-3 home defeat to Estonia. Before that, they drew 1-1 with Gibraltar in late 2024, and just lost 0-2 in a friendly against Poland last weekend.
If Moldova can pull off a miracle by beating Italy, it will be a bigger shock than their 3-2 win over Poland in the Euro 2024 qualifiers. They have a chance to do so if they can capitalise on the hosts’ rising tension and anxiety to pull off a surprise.
Form, head-to-head record
In the last 5 matches, Italy won 1, drew 1 and lost 3. This is also the achievement in the last 5 appearances of Moldova.
The history of the confrontation is completely in favor of Italy when they have won all 5 previous meetings with Moldova. The most recent friendly match was 5 years ago, when Italy destroyed their opponent with an overwhelming score of 6-0.
Notably, in the 4 matches of the World Cup qualifiers, Italy also maintained a perfect winning record with a total score of up to 9-2.
Force information
Italy is missing a series of key players due to injury and other reasons including Moise Kean, Manuel Locatelli, Riccardo Calafiori, Alessandro Buongiorno, Matteo Gabbia, Francesco Acerbi.
Moldova will be without Maxim Cojocaru due to suspension.
Italy: Donnarumma; Di Lorenzo, Ranieri, Bastoni; Cambiaso, Frattesi, Ricci, Tonali, Udogie; Raspadori, Retegui
Moldova: Avram; Platica, Posmac, Baboglo, Mudrac, Reabciuk; Caicamov, Motpan, Rata, Ionita; Nicolaescu
Score prediction: Italy 2-0 Moldova
Source: https://tienphong.vn/nhan-dinh-italia-vs-moldova-01h45-ngay-106-khep-lai-trieu-dai-hlv-spalletti-post1749610.tpo
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