Last Friday, in the semi-finals of the 2022 Qatar World Qualifiers European Zone play-offs, Italy had a shocking upset, losing 0-1 to North Macedonia and missing out on two consecutive World Cups. A few days ago, Bonucci was very angry when he talked about Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup. He bluntly said that it was caused by UEFA’s competition. In addition, the Italian central defender also talked about the issue of Mancini, hoping that the Blue Shirts coach can stay in office.
Bonucci was angry because Italy lost 1 game in this preliminaries, and even remained unbeaten in the group stage, with 4 wins and 4 draws in 8 games, but because they were second in the group, they could only participate. play-offs. It should be pointed out that UEFA has changed the competition system of this World Cup. Previously, the play-offs have always been two rounds. For example, in the 2018 World Cup, although Italy missed the World Cup, they were defeated by Sweden after two rounds. In the play-offs of the current World Preliminaries, UEFA will divide it into semi-finals and finals. Both stages are determined by the outcome. Such a model is more prone to upsets, which caused Italy to lose 1 game. will miss the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
“We lost everything in a tie-breaker, it’s a very ridiculous rule. Sadly, that’s how World Cup qualification is set, it’s just crazy. In order to be in the World Cup, you have to To participate in such a decisive game, as we have seen, anything can happen.” Italian central defender Bonucci was dissatisfied with the rules of the European zone, and then compared other continents, “In other continents, some balls It’s crazy to have a team that loses four or five games and still qualify for the World Cup, but we got our only defeat because of a 92-minute conceded goal, and then we lost the World Cup qualification.”
Of course, Bonucci also found a reason for Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, thinking that the players were floating after winning last summer’s European Cup, “Obviously, we haven’t done better, we have to learn lessons for the future. , to get back to where we should be. After the Euros, we were a little lost and lost those values, attributes and passions that kept us out of the World Cup.”
After Italy’s upset loss to North Macedonia, it was reported that coach Mancini had offered to resign. In this regard, Bonucci hopes that Mancini can continue to coach, “The new cycle, will I stay? I am fine now, but we need to make a decision with Mancini whether to continue in the next two years. We have been working together for years. First of all, we have to wait for Mancini’s decision, which is the most important thing. We hope he can continue to coach. We can only thank him. He helped Italy come out of the shadow of missing the last World Cup. And led the team to win the European Cup. Missing the World Cup this time is everyone’s fault, and it can’t be just the coach.”
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