Defending European champions Italy face a familiar scenario; defeat North Macedonia to move to the brink of qualification for a major tournament. The Azzurri are on the verge of setting up an enormous final round showdown with Ukraine if they can take three points against the already eliminated North Macedonians. A win here would see them draw level with Ukraine, who started this round occupying the second automatic qualification position for Euro 2024 on 13 points, with a crucial H2H advantage to take into next week’s final matchday encounter in Leverkusen.
But the ghosts of losing 1-0 to North Macedonia in Palermo just last year, and missing the 2022 FIFA World Cup as a result, will continue haunting them for years to come. On that basis, Italy’s three consecutive wins as home favourites, including against Ukraine (2-1) and Malta (4-0) in this qualification cycle, cannot be taken for granted. Azzurri fans will be hoping that head coach Luciano Spalletti, who secured a 1-1 draw away to North Macedonia in his first game in charge, has worked out a way to go one better this time.
It’s hard to make a case for North Macedonia repeating their heroics of last year, but sometimes in sport the teams with nothing to lose can be the ones to fear most. When discounting their two wins against rock-bottom minnows Malta, the Lynxes have scored just three goals and conceded 13 from four games in this qualification cycle (D1, L3).
Whilst there’s something about the sight of Italian blue that lifts their performances, as illustrated by remaining unbeaten in three consecutive H2Hs (W1, D2), North Macedonia haven’t been able to replicate anything like their incredible World Cup qualifying victory of last year. They’ve lost six of seven games as pre-match outsiders since then, with the exception being the reverse H2H (1-1).
Key battle: Gianluca Scamacca is Italy’s most recent goalscorer and followed up that strike against England with four direct goal contributions (G3, A1) for Atalanta since then. He’ll be hoping to get past North Macedonian goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski, who hasn’t enjoyed a single national team clean sheet from the 11 matches since they last defeated Italy.
Hot stat: Italy scored first in all but one of their last seven matches (W4, D1, L2).
