The sting was brief, but far from painless.

When Aleksandar Trajkovski fired the ball low into the net with his right foot in the second minute of added time, he didn't just score.

The player from North Macedonia hit the proud footballing nation of Italy so hard that they will not recover from it for a long time.

The nightmare of the Squadra Azzurra will not be over the morning after either, because it is true: the four-time world and current European champion missed the finals of a World Cup again after 2018;

in Qatar too, the game will be played without Italy.

Tobias Rabe

Responsible editor for Sport Online.

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Before the start of the European play-offs, in which twelve teams were originally supposed to play for three World Cup tickets, everyone was amazed at the bottleneck that had resulted from the draw.

After the semi-finals on Thursday, it actually came down to the big duel between Portugal and Italy.

There can only be one.

That still applies.

But the one who is allowed to go to Qatar will not be Italy, that is already certain before the final on Tuesday.

After a sensational 1-0 win in Palermo, North Macedonia played Portugal in Porto for a trip to the desert.

It will be a long time before the Italian pain will subside.

"That's hard to explain.

We are disappointed, broken, devastated.

Something was missing again.

We've made mistakes since September and now we're paying for them," Giorgio Chiellini said after the embarrassment.

"It's hard to explain, it's such a big disappointment." It's just 256 days since he lifted the European Champion's trophy after the Wembley final.

The bright images of the azure summer are long gone.

The Winter World Cup takes place without Italy.

"It hurts so bad"

It's a development that wasn't inevitable, but that has become apparent.

After the triumph in London, the Italians struggled through qualifying and only finished second behind Switzerland.

There were increasing signs that the momentum of the EM had long since evaporated.

Nevertheless, coach Roberto Mancini continued to aim for the world title.

Nothing will come of it.

Although his team was superior against North Macedonia, they were far too unimaginative in front of goal.

And when Trajkovski, who played in Palermo for four years, took heart, pulled away and met, all Italian dreams were shattered in a moment.

The eleven have already shown on other occasions that North Macedonia does not have a big name, but has a big fighting heart.

The home defeat of the German national team was just a year ago.

Whether Mancini will remain Italy's coach is unclear.

"We'll see, the disappointment is too great to talk about the future," he said late Thursday evening when asked.

"It's hard to think about things like that.

It won't be easy in the next few days.

Just as the EM was the best experience of my life, this was the biggest disappointment.

We can't say anything, this is football.

Sometimes incredible things happen and it happened.”

Mancini has a contract as national coach until mid-2026. The head of the association, Gabriele Gravina, spoke out in favor of continuing the cooperation with the former national player the night after the bankruptcy: “I wish that Mancini would stay with us.

We have committed ourselves to a project.” Captain Chiellini also said: “We have to stand up now and I hope that Mancini will stay.” However, he did not want to say on Thursday evening whether the 37-year-old defensive veteran would continue in the national team himself.