Beat North Macedonia Five Goals, Italy Only Needs A Draw To Qualify For Euro 2024

Italian player Matteo Darmian celebrated the goal he scored against North Macedonia in the Euro 2024 qualifiers. (Twitter @Azzurri)

JAKARTA - Italy showed their best performance when they beat North Macedonia 5-2 in the Euro 2024 qualifying Group C match at the Stadio Olimpico, Saturday, November 18 in the morning WIB. The result made Italy only need a draw in the final match against Ukraine to qualify for the final round.

Italy opened its hopes of qualifying for Germany after winning an important victory over North Macedonia. The result in the home game made Italy pocket 13 points while at the same time bringing them up to second place. The same as Ukraine but Italy are ahead on goal difference.

With this position, Italy only needs a draw to accompany England, which has already won a ticket to the final round.

However, in the last match which became the decision, Gli Azzurri played an away match against Ukraine on Tuesday, November 22 in the morning WIB. This is a winner takes all duel which means whoever the winner is in that match, the team gets a ticket to Germany.

Italy benefited slightly because the decisive match was held in Germany. Because Ukraine is still in a war situation so it cannot entertain its guests at home.

Ukraine also served Italy as a guest at the BayArena Stadium owned by German Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen.

If you fail to qualify automatically, Italy still has a chance through the playoffs. This is Italy's last resort to get tickets to the finals. Vice versa for Ukraine if it fails to block Italy's pace.

While North Macedonia is ranked fourth with seven points. Malta who did not get points is at the bottom of the standings.

In the duel against North Macedonia, Italy appeared encouraging. Moreover, North Macedonia is not an elite European team so that Luciano Spalletti's team has no trouble over it.

Italy, which immediately kicked off, successfully broke into the opponent's goal through the Giacomo Raspadori striker in the 13th minute. Unfortunately, the goal was disallowed because he was in an offside position.

But within one minute, midfielder Matteo Darmian made no mistake when his header broke into North Macedonia's goal.

Furthermore, Italy again has the opportunity to add goals after receiving a penalty in the 40th minute. Penalti was awarded after Nikola Serafimov touched the ball with his hand. The referee's decision was to protest from Serafimov because he touched the ball as a result of falling.

Serafimov's protest, who later received treatment for the incident, left him injured by the referee. However, Jorginho, who took the execution, repeated his failure.

The Arsenal player had failed a penalty which resulted in Italy failing to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. This time, he failed again after his execution was thwarted by goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski.

Again, just one minute later, Italy could add goals. This time it was striker Federico Chiesa who increased Italy's advantage.

The Juventus striker then scored a brace in first-half injury time. The 3-0 score for Italy lasted until the first 45 minutes.

In the second half, Italy had a decline in performance. The situation was put to good use by North Macedonia.

As a result, the visitors reduced their lag through Jani Atanasov when the game had only been running for seven minutes. Atanasov's header that escaped the offside trap successfully beat goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

The situation began to make the host supporters wary. The reason is, Atanasov then scored a brace in the 74th minute. His goal made the score change 3-2 for Italy.

Luckily, Raspadori returned Italy to track after scoring a goal in the 81st minute. A goal that made it easy for Italy to get away from the pursuit of North Macedonia.

Moreover, Stephan El Shaarawy who came in to replace Domenico Berardi managed to break into the opponent's goal in injury time. The score changed to 5-2 for Italy and lasted until the end of the match.