Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Gareth Bale, David Alaba... Several European football stars will play in less than a week their participation in the big event of world football, which will be held in Qatar from November 21 to December 18.
Those who do not win one of the last three tickets from the European zone will join other stars who will have to follow the event on television, such as Norway's Erling Haaland, Slovenia's Jan Oblak and Bosnian Edin Dzeko, whose selections have already been eliminated.
With Russia excluded from the World Cup race to invade Ukraine, seven European teams will play their options in two matches, Thursday and Tuesday, although only two will be known that day, as Scotland-Ukraine was postponed 'sine die' due to the war and the outcome of Table A of the repechage will not be known for a few weeks.
The football fan holds his breath thinking about an eventual final between Portugal and Italy next Tuesday in Porto, in what would be a dramatic match as one of the last two European champions will be left out of the World Cup.
Before, however, they will have to overcome their semifinal matches, against North Macedonia in Palermo and Turkey in Porto, respectively.
- A duel of European champions? -
Four years after the historic fiasco that meant being left out of a World Cup for the first time since 1958, losing to Sweden, Italy, the four-time world champion (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006), the nightmare of the repechage is revived and a negative outcome could be catastrophic for Italian football.
How do things change in just a few months? Last July, Italy celebrated its second European Championship, but since then it has only accumulated disappointments: an end to the streak of 37 unbeaten matches with Roberto Mancini against Spain in the Nations League and, above all, four draws in the last five World Cup qualifying matches, which gave Switzerland the option of winning the direct ticket.
“Our goal is to win the World Cup, but to win it, we have to win in these two matches,” Mancini said this week very optimistically.
But the pressure is enormous for the Azzurra. “We are the European champions, we have to go to the World Cup,” said former coach Antonio Conte, current Tottenham coach, on Tuesday.
In addition, Italy has not yet forgotten the trauma of four years ago, especially considering that nine players from the Mancini team experienced that moment: Bonucci, Chiellini, Immobile, Belotti, Verratti, Insigne, Jorginho, Florenzi and Bernardeschi.
- Last chance for Cristiano Ronaldo? -
All the pressure is also on Portugal. It's hard to imagine such a talented team outside the World Cup. Seleçao is not just Cristiano Ronaldo: Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United), Bernardo Silva and Ruben Dias (Manchester City), Joao Felix (Atlético Madrid), Diogo Jota (Liverpool) or Danilo Pereira (Paris SG) are starting players in the continent's top teams.
But problems accumulate for coach Fernando Santos, especially in the defensive sector: Ruben Dias, Nelson Semedo, Renato Sanches and Ruben Neves are out due to injury; veteran Pepe tested positive for covid and will miss at least the match against Turkey, as did Joao Cancelo, this one by sanction.
Portugal's last absence from a World Cup was in France-1998 and since the Eurocopa-2000 it has qualified for all major international tournaments.
An elimination would prevent Cristiano Ronaldo, just 37 years old, from playing his fifth world championship... and last with almost complete certainty. “We know that the road will not be easy and we respect our rivals very much, who share the same goal as us. But together we will fight to take Portugal to the place it deserves,” the Manchester United star wrote on Instagram last week.
- Postponed Scotland-Ukraine -
On Route A of the Repechage, two Real Madrid teammates will face each other: the Welshman Gareth Bale and the Austrian David Alaba, although the winner will have to wait weeks to find out if he will face Scotland or Ukraine in the final.
FIFA's sanction of Russia made it possible for Robert Lewandowski's Poland to qualify directly for next Tuesday's final, against the winner of Thursday's match between Ibrahimovic's Sweden and the Czech Republic.
The three teams that win these playoffs will join the other 10 European teams that have already won the ticket directly by finishing first of their respective qualifying groups: Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, England, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
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