The coach of the Italian national football team, Roberto Mancini, admitted that his team would have preferred to avoid a possible confrontation with Portugal in the European qualifying round for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The European play-off draw, which was held on Friday in Zurich, placed the Italian and Portuguese teams, along with the teams of North Macedonia and Turkey, in the third qualification path, from which one team qualifies for the finals, just like the other two qualification paths.
The European Qualifying Supplement for the Qatar World Cup 2022 (Al-Jazeera)
Italy or Portugal for the World Cup
The Italian team will meet with its Macedonian counterpart, while Portugal will face Turkey in the European play-off semi-final, with the two winners meeting each other in the final, in which the winner qualifies for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Portuguese national team was minutes away from qualifying for the finals through the European qualifiers, but Aleksandar Mitrovic scored a goal in the killer time that led Serbia to beat Portugal 2-1 and grab the direct qualification to the World Cup, while the Portuguese team qualified for the European play-off.
Mancini admits Italy's predicament
Mancini expressed confidence in his team's ability to qualify, but spoke frankly about the difficulty of the task of winning the potential confrontation with Portugal and denying star Cristiano Ronaldo what would be his last chance to participate in the World Cup.
"We are always confident and positive," Mancini said. "North Macedonia has a qualified and good group of players, and we will have to play a great match, and then let's see what happens in the final."
When asked about the possibility of facing Portugal in the final, Mancini answered clearly: "We would have liked to avoid the possibility of facing them, and at the same time Portugal would have been happy to avoid our potential confrontation."