approached the gates of Italy\u2019s training centre<\/a> in Florence last week to demand that the match not be played because of the war in Gaza \u2014 part of a national strike that saw millions of activists take to the streets.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a calm environment,\u201d Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso acknowledged Tuesday from inside the Coverciano training centre that was targeted. \u201cThere will be 10,000 people outside the stadium and 5-6,000 inside the stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Monday, only 4,000 tickets were sold for next Tuesday\u2019s match at Stadio Friuli.<\/p>\n
While UEFA had been considering suspending Israel over the war and Udine Mayor Alberto Felice De Toni had called for the game to be postponed, with Italy desperately attempting to avoid failing to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup, the four-time champion team doesn\u2019t plan to risk not playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to play this match. Because if we don\u2019t, we\u2019ll lose it 3-0,\u201d Gattuso said, referring to the rule for forfeited matches. \u201c[Italian Football Federation] president [Gabriele] Gravina explained that very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was also tension on the field between the two squads after the final whistle when Italy edged Israel 5-4 in a nine-goal thriller last month in neutral Hungary \u2014 where Israel has been playing its \u201chome\u201d matches during the war.<\/p>\n
The protesters in Italy and elsewhere have also been reacting to an international aid mission blocked by Israeli forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s upsetting to see what\u2019s happening to innocent people and children,\u201d Gattuso said. \u201cIt hurts your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Italy and Israel are level six points behind group leader Norway, with only the first-place finisher in the group to qualify directly for next year\u2019s tournament in North America.<\/p>\n
The second-place finishers progress to a playoff \u2014 the stage where Italy was eliminated by Sweden and North Macedonia and ruled out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering that we\u2019re trying to get to the World Cup and we need to give our absolute all, I\u2019m sure you can understand that I would have preferred to play a home game with the enthusiasm that we saw in Bergamo a month ago,\u201d Gattuso said, referring to a 5-0 win over Estonia.<\/p>\n
Israel could also face protests during a visit to Norway on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Norwegian soccer federation pledged to give its profits from ticket sales for the game in Oslo to humanitarian work in Gaza by Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF).<\/p>\n
Italy played Israel in Udine last October in the Nations League. That game went off without incident amid a heavy police presence and despite a pro-Palestinian demonstration before the game. Italy won 4-1.<\/p>\n
The Italian Football Coaches\u2019 Association (AIAC) wrote to the Italian Football Federation<\/a> in August, in a letter to be forwarded to European and world football\u2019s governing bodies, calling for Israel to be suspended from international competition due to its war on Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy host Israel in a World Cup qualifier on October 14, in Udine where the stadium only holds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,2057,596,6897,2328,12241,44,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-197524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sport","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}