said Gattuso in his press conference.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThere are a lot of experienced players in the Bosnia team, Wales are very different. Bosnia close up well, rely on their strikers, so it\u2019ll be another very difficult game, much like the one we had tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took until the 56th minute for Italy to break Northern Ireland down with a Sandro Tonali strike from the edge of the area, then the Newcastle United midfielder set up Moise Kean for the second.<\/p>\n
![\"BERGAMO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Moise-Kean-celebrate.jpg\")
BERGAMO, ITALY \u2013 MARCH 26: Moise Kean of Italy celebrates scoring his team\u2019s second goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 European Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Italy and Northern Ireland at Stadio di Bergamo on March 26, 2026 in Bergamo, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Did the Azzurri feel the pressure of being the favourites a bit too much?<\/p>\n
\u201cAside from the pressure, we also made a mistake in the first half with Locatelli sitting too deep, we ended up with Mancini acting as a full-back, which was not what we had prepared at all,\u201d confessed Gattuso.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed to bring their midfielders forward and look for our strikers, but instead we kept passing it down the right for Politano to take his man on, occasionally on the left, but not enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cNorthern Ireland surprised us too, as we expected them to be far more vertical, but they did try to pass it around. After 15-20 minutes, we realised that and moved better. Our mentality and our tactics in the first half were not what we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"BERGAMO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Italy-fans-scarves.jpg\")
BERGAMO, ITALY \u2013 MARCH 26: Fans of Italy show their support by holding up scarves in the stands prior to the FIFA World Cup 2026 European Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Italy and Northern Ireland at Stadio di Bergamo on March 26, 2026 in Bergamo, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The tension was palpable on the touchline, but Gattuso assured he tried to keep his usually abrasive manner under wraps.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you noticed, I was very calm in the first half. I was angry too, because for long spells we didn\u2019t do what we had prepared. I explained we needed to go for the strikers and not sit so deep. We did much better after the restart, I realise these are games where you feel the tension and what is at stake,\u201d continued the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to come here in a smaller stadium was also wise, because if we\u2019d been in a bigger place with 70,000 in the stands, trust me that a good 30 per cent would\u2019ve started jeering at half-time. Instead, we did well to pick Bergamo, the fans helped us and they were fundamental in not putting more pressure on my players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alessandro Bastoni had been a major doubt due to an ankle injury and he was the first player substituted soon after receiving a yellow card.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be honest, Bastoni had been out for nearly three weeks and not even training in that time. He was booked, I preferred to not take any more risks, but the others are to be relied upon. Only Scamacca is carrying a knock, but he should be there too in the second game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other situations, Bastoni would 99 per cent not have been risked from the start today. Now we\u2019ve got to try to recover as quickly as possible and do as little damage as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERGAMO, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 05: Coach Gennaro Gattuso of Italy looks on prior to the National anthems prior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-563573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"BERGAMO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Gennaro-Gattuso-glance.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"BERGAMO,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Gennaro-Gattuso-tense.jpg\")
BERGAMO, ITALY \u2013 MARCH 26: Gennaro Gattuso of Italy looks on prior to the FIFA World Cup 2026 European Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Italy and Northern Ireland at Stadio di Bergamo on March 26, 2026 in Bergamo, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n