Fiasko averted: The four-time soccer world champion Italy has won the trend-setting pursuant duel against Israel in the World Cup qualification. In his second game as a national coach, Gennaro Gattuso celebrated the second win 5: 4 (1: 1) after twice the gap in Hungarian Debrecen. Italy now stands in group I like Israel on nine points – and thus also reduced the gap to the flawless league leader Norway (12).
Manuel Locatelli provided the early shock (16th) in an initial phase characterized by Italian slapstick. Striker Moise Kean from AC Florenz brought the favorite back before the break and even after the backlog of Dor Peretz (52.), Matteo Politano (59.) and Giacomo Raspadori (81.) completely turned before another own goal of Alessandro Bastoni (87th) and again. But the last word had Italy, Sandro Tonali scored the acclaimed winning goal (90.+1).
Italy gets a horror start
The former world champion Gattuso, who succeeded Luciano Spalletti in June and was supposed to lead Italy to the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico after two missed finals, saw a horror start of his team three days after his atmospheric debut in Bergamo against Estonia. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma fisted the ball into his own goal after a corner, but referee Slavko Vincic whistled the scene and decided on the offensive foul of the Israeli striker. German Christian Dingert and his assistant Sascha Stegemann also had no objections in the VAR room-wrong decision. Ten minutes later, a too short pass from Nicoló Barella Donnarumma forced to a risky tackle, this time the penalty whistle was right. But Italy remained unconcentrated – Donnarumma sailed past a flank and Locatelli finally slipped a flat cross into his own goal.
But then the favorite turned up. Kean gave the Hamburg Daniel Peretz no chance in the Israeli goal with his low shot. The new management of the Israelis, who won 4-0 in Moldova on Friday, came out of nowhere. Manor Salomon danced across the Italian defensive, Peretz hit the corner. But less than two minutes later the Italian answer followed, politano and substitute Raspadori took care of the victory believed, but Israel came back with a double strike before Tonali still hit victory.
Israel, which has been playing his “home games” in the east of Hungary near the Romanian border since the beginning of the attacks on Gaza in October 2023, played with a black mourning flora after a terrorist attack in Jerusalem had been killed in six Israelis on Monday. Some of the almost 200 Italian fans turned away from the opposing hymn and kept almost 30 protest signs in the air with the inscription “Stop”.
