{"id":553919,"date":"2026-03-21T01:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553919\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:05:09","slug":"is-football-still-no-1-in-italy-azzurri-face-world-cup-play-off-amid-other-sports-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553919\/","title":{"rendered":"Is football still No 1 in Italy? Azzurri face World Cup play-off amid other sports\u2019 success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Italy is coming off a record performance at the Winter Olympics. Kimi Antonelli just became the second youngest driver at 19 to win a Formula 1 race and is considered The Next Big Thing in auto racing.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Azzurri rugby squad beat England for the first time in the Six Nations.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Also, Jannik Sinner is back to winning ways on the tennis court. Italy\u2019s men and women are the world champions in volleyball.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Even the country\u2019s unheralded baseball and cricket teams have broken barriers recently.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Yet there is one big team from Italy that continues to struggle: the once-dominant men\u2019s football team are at risk of failing to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Italian driver Kimi Antonelli won the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix last weekend. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/eabfcbf9-cf72-4466-8090-2e10f7e6094d_2802fda4.jpg\" title=\"Italian driver Kimi Antonelli won the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix last weekend. Photo: AFP\"\/>Italian driver Kimi Antonelli won the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix last weekend. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The four-time World Cup champion need to beat Northern Ireland in the play-offs next Thursday in Bergamo and then either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina away to avoid going at least 16 years without even playing a match at football\u2019s biggest event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy is coming off a record performance at the Winter Olympics. Kimi Antonelli just became the second youngest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[273752,64,63,273748,35003,80064,11308,6257,1208,78339,596,2592,273753,273750,273751,273749,24421,2328,85],"class_list":["post-553919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-andrea-abodi","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-azzurri","tag-belfast","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","tag-brazil","tag-champions-league","tag-england","tag-erling-haaland","tag-football","tag-france","tag-gabriele-gravina","tag-gennaro-gattuso","tag-gianluigi-buffon","tag-giorgio-chiellini","tag-inter-milan","tag-italy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553919","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=553919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}