Milan’s Ghost: Can Italy Finally Break the Play-Off Curse?

When Italy need a moment of certainty between the sticks, they have Gianluigi Donnarumma. When they need a goal, they have Mateo Retegui, Moise Kean, and a forward line that scored 21 times in six qualifying fixtures. When they need a crowd, the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza will provide one: 69,000 supporters turned out in November for a group stage game that had already lost its significance before kick-off. On Thursday evening, the stakes will be considerably higher than that.

Italy host Northern Ireland in the first leg of their FIFA World Cup 2026 European play-off semi-final, and for the Azzurri this is not simply another international fixture. It is the most consequential 90 minutes of a four-year cycle that has, twice already, ended in devastating disappointment. For Michael O’Neill’s side, it is the opportunity of a generation: a chance, however improbable it might look on paper, to reach a first World Cup since Mexico in 1986 and do so against the most historically traumatised play-off nation in European football.

Luciano Spalletti’s Italy arrive as substantial favourites in every statistical category that matters: goals, possession, shots, technical quality, individual pedigree. Northern Ireland, who qualified for these play-offs via a Nations League group win rather than a conventional second-place qualifying finish, conceded possession willingly in every campaign fixture they played. The question is not whether Italy are the better side. Given what this specific format has produced in recent years, the question is whether being the better side is sufficient guarantee of the outcome.

Eight Years, Two Humiliations, and a Nation Waiting

The timeline is worth setting out plainly because context is everything. Italy have not appeared at a World Cup since Brazil 2014, a span that will reach twelve years by the time the North American tournament kicks off this summer. A nation that has won the tournament four times and regards its footballing identity as inseparable from the global stage has been absent from it twice in succession, and on both occasions the play-offs were the scene of the failure.

In November 2017, a goalless draw against Sweden at the San Siro, following a 1-0 defeat in Gothenburg, confirmed Italy’s absence from Russia 2018 for the first time since 1958. The reaction was seismic. The subsequent rebuild, under Roberto Mancini, produced a European Championship triumph in 2021 and what looked like a fresh generation capable of returning Italy to the summit of the game. Then came Palermo, 24 March 2022, and North Macedonia. A 90th-minute winner from Aleksandar Trajkovski eliminated Italy from the World Cup play-offs in a result that still does not look real when you read it. Qatar came and went without the Azzurri.

The lesson from that evening, one that will settle in the minds of every Italian player who takes the field on Thursday, is that the identity of the opponent does not determine the outcome in a two-legged play-off. North Macedonia were ranked far below Italy. They won. Northern Ireland finished third in a qualifying group won by Germany. They are here. The play-offs have their own logic, one that has proved resistant to reputations, and Italy know it more painfully than any team in Europe.

What Spalletti’s Qualifying Campaign Revealed

Strip away the 1-4 home defeat to Norway in the final group game, and the picture of Italy across this qualifying cycle is genuinely impressive. Five wins from five, 19 goals scored against Estonia, Israel, and Moldova, and a consistent attacking threat spread across multiple positions rather than concentrated in a single player: these are the characteristics of a side that has rebuilt from the depths of the Palermo humiliation with real intent and real quality.

Retegui leads the group-stage scoring charts with five goals and four assists in eight appearances. His profile — aerial presence, composed finishing, intelligent movement to create space for others — makes him the kind of striker who functions at his best when service is reliable, and in Federico Dimarco and Andrea Cambiaso, he has wing-backs capable of delivering it consistently. Dimarco provided four assists across the campaign, operating down the left with the freedom of someone trusted to attack as readily as defend. On the right, both Cambiaso and Raoul Bellanova offer similar range. Italy’s width is one of their most significant attacking weapons.

Behind the forwards, Sandro Tonali anchors the midfield with a composure that feels remarkable given the personal difficulty of the past two years. Nicolo Barella drives the press and the transition, though his three yellow cards across qualifying represent a caution: in a two-legged tie where accumulation matters, the same intensity that makes him indispensable carries a disciplinary risk. Defensively, Alessandro Bastoni and Riccardo Calafiori give Italy a ball-playing quality from centre-back that shapes the entire build-up pattern. Donnarumma, ever-present across seven qualifying appearances, remains the foundation of it all.

Northern Ireland’s Unlikely Route to the Last Four

Michael O’Neill’s side are here because of the Nations League, not in spite of it. Finishing third in a qualifying group containing Germany was never going to produce automatic qualification, and a second-place finish was beyond them from early in the campaign. Their Nations League group victory provided the play-off entry that the qualifying standings could not, and it is a route O’Neill and his players will be determined to honour with a performance on Thursday that makes the level of the occasion feel appropriate.

The qualifying campaign was fractured in ways the results alone do not convey. O’Neill used 27 players across six fixtures, with 22 making at least one start — a rotation that reflected injury and availability pressures rather than deliberate squad rotation at this level. Most significantly, first-choice goalkeeper Pierce Charles was absent for the entire qualifying campaign, leaving Bailey Peacock-Farrell to deputise for the majority of the group stage. If Charles is fit and returns between the posts for these play-off legs, it is a genuine upgrade in a position where Northern Ireland need every advantage available against a forward line of Italy’s quality.

What the campaign did confirm is the character of this squad when the structure holds. Beating Slovakia 2-0 at Windsor Park and winning 3-1 away in Luxembourg demonstrated a team capable of defending diligently and hitting with directness when the moment arrives. Only two players, Paddy McNair and Isaac Price, started all six qualifying games — but that consistency at the spine tells its own story about where O’Neill’s first-choice selections lie. The 36.3% possession average is not a sign of weakness; it is a deliberate signature of how this team operates, and against possession-heavy opposition they have shown they can hold shape and remain competitive.

The Tactical Picture: What Both Sides Must Get Right

Italy’s 3-5-2 will give them control of the ball and the tempo. Their 63% average possession across qualifying will settle somewhere around the same figure on Thursday evening, and Spalletti’s side will use that control to stretch Northern Ireland horizontally, probing for the gaps that open when a defensive block is asked to defend wide for extended periods. Dimarco’s movement down the left and the interchanges between Barella, Tonali, and the attacking midfield line will create the kind of combinations that lower-block defences find hardest to track without conceding fouls or losing defensive shape.

Northern Ireland’s primary counter is aerial and physical. Their 16.7 aerial duels won per game is significantly higher than Italy’s 11.3, and the gap reflects a deliberate approach: when the ball is cleared or delivered long, O’Neill’s side compete for it rather than ceding it. Set pieces, crosses, and the second ball after a clearance are the most realistic routes to goal for a team averaging 9.2 shots per game against a defence of Italy’s quality. Dan Ballard, Trai Hume, and Jamie Reid all carry aerial threat; the delivery will need to be accurate under Italian pressure, but the physical contest is Northern Ireland’s most credible weapon.

The player who complicates Italy’s defensive picture most directly is Conor Bradley. The Liverpool right-back, who missed the dead-rubber final qualifier against Luxembourg through rest, is one of the most dangerous overlapping full-backs in European football at club level. Italy’s left wing-back will face a test of concentration and energy management across both legs. Bradley does not score often from the right flank, but he creates the situations that others finish, and in a tie where a single away goal at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza could transform the second-leg calculus entirely, his movement deserves specific preparation from Italy’s defensive unit.

The Players Who Could Define the Tie

Retegui is the name Italy will look to when the pressure of the occasion requires a goal. His combination of five qualifying goals and four assists reflects a striker who brings team-mates into the game as readily as he finishes their work, and against a Northern Ireland defensive block that sits deep and concedes aerial duels, his physical presence in the box creates challenges that a back three cannot always resolve from a set-piece or a driven cross. Alongside him, Kean offers something different: four goals in 178 qualifying minutes is a conversion rate that speaks to a striker who punishes half-chances in the kind of frantic, high-stakes moments these fixtures inevitably produce.

For Northern Ireland, the most important player across both legs is likely to be Isaac Price. The only outfield player to start all six qualifying games, Price averaged 2.3 shots per game from a wide midfield role, the highest in the Northern Ireland squad, and his energy both in and out of possession defines the tempo of everything O’Neill’s side tries to do. Justin Devenny, the qualifying campaign’s highest-rated player at 7.34, provides the other engine alongside him: creative, competitive, and capable of arriving in the right place at the right moment. If Northern Ireland are to threaten on Thursday, Price and Devenny will be at the centre of it.

The goalkeeper question for O’Neill may be the most consequential single selection decision in the tie. If Pierce Charles is available and fit after missing the entire campaign, starting him represents both a logical upgrade and a risk: a player returning cold into the biggest game Northern Ireland have played in a generation. Peacock-Farrell has the campaign experience. Charles has the quality. The decision O’Neill makes between the posts will be scrutinised heavily before kick-off — and, if things go wrong, for considerably longer afterwards.

Verdict: History, Hunger, and What Thursday Settles

Italy should win the first leg. The weight of individual quality, the home environment of a near-capacity Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, the attacking fluency built across a qualifying campaign of genuine consistency: all of it points toward a home victory on Thursday. If Retegui and Kean are both available and functioning at their qualifying form, and if Northern Ireland’s physical defensive block shows even a fraction of the vulnerability it displayed in the defeats to Germany and Slovakia, a two-goal advantage heading into the second leg at Windsor Park is entirely achievable.

The caveat is written in the walls of the Stadio Barbera in Palermo, and in every Swedish sports archive from November 2017. Italy have been the better team in both of their recent play-off eliminations. Quality and expectation are not the same as outcome when the format is two legs and the opposition have nothing to lose. Northern Ireland, at Windsor Park in the second leg, in front of a sold-out crowd that will have waited most of a week to find out whether this generation of players can do something no Northern Ireland team has achieved since Norman Whiteside and Gerry Armstrong were pulling on the green jersey, will not be easy to overcome even with a first-leg lead.

What Thursday does is set the terms. A convincing Italian victory makes Windsor Park an exercise in damage limitation for the hosts. A narrow win, or a score involving a Northern Ireland away goal, makes the second leg genuinely open. A Northern Ireland result of any kind — a draw, or the scenario that should not need to be stated but demands it — changes the entire conversation about what Italian football has become in the decade since they last graced a World Cup. Forty years of Northern Ireland’s waiting ends on one side of these two legs. Eight years of Italy’s does too, in one direction or the other. Thursday is where it begins.