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We may be an international break, but the usual transfer rumor speculation that comes with no club football for two weeks has been replaced by a very obvious topic of discussion the past four days. That is because, in case you have completely forgotten or chosen to not go into a spiral of depression, Italy are at risk of not qualifying for the World Cup \u2014 again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The past two World Cups have not had the Azzurri in the field of teams competing. Instead, anybody associated with Italy has been sitting at home watching rather than actually competing. And to make matters worse, it\u2019s not like things are looking all that much better this year \u2014 mainly because Thursday night in Bergamo will be either the thing that gets Italy one step closer to qualifying or make it tic-tac-toe three World Cups missed in a row.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Italy faces Northern Ireland in the semifinal of their four-team qualification pod. They win this and then it\u2019s a trip to either Walves or Bosnia and Herzegovina to try and get to the World Cup in North America this coming summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Can Italy actually do it? And by \u201cit\u201d I mean actually beat Northern Ireland? Can they prevent the downward trajectory of a nation that has won four World Cup titles for at least a little bit?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But at this rate, it\u2019s hard to say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
So here is your pre-game discussion and groupthink of sorts. Italy manager Rino Gattuso was brought in to try and get the team that he won the whole damn thing with in 2006 qualified for the World Cup. Italy needs two wins to make that happen. But a loss on Thursday night in Bergamo and the sports dailies in Italy might have one of the biggest aneurysms that we\u2019ve seen \u2014 and this is a country that hasn\u2019t qualified for the last two World Cups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
We will have a game thread for viewing Italy\u2019s game against Northern Ireland later in the day. For now, though, the obvious question is if the Azzurri can get to the play-off round final against either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina. It\u2019s a simple question with a very difficult answer \u2014 or at least so it seems that way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n