Play-off pressure ‘very much on Italy’ – O’Neill

With Northern Ireland two games away from reaching the 2026 World Cup, manager Michael O’Neill has told his players not to “waste this opportunity”.

It’s certainly not a straightforward path to North America as they travel to Italy for their play-off semi-final on 26 March.

Should they upset the Azzurri, Northern Ireland will travel to either Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina five days later for a winner-takes-all final.

Italy have not qualified for a World Cup since the 2014 edition in Brazil, with Northern Ireland absent from the big dance since 1986 when it was last held in Mexico – one of the three host nations next year alongside Canada and the USA.

Although O’Neill’s side has a young age profile, he has no doubt they can rise to the play-off challenge. Despite away defeats by Germany and Slovakia in the group phase, he also feels his side showed enough on the road to suggest they can spring the surprise.

“It’s difficult to win away in international football and that is something this team still has to develop, but I take a lot of encouragement from the performances in Cologne and Slovakia where we were challenged and were missing key players in those games”, he said.

“We still gave a really good account of ourselves and were in the game in Germany for 70, 75 minutes. We were in the game in Slovakia right to the end and felt a little big aggrieved by the nature of that result.

” We have to make the game as difficult as possible for Italy and it will be difficult for them with the expectation they carry into the game.

While Northern Ireland finished third in the qualification group behind Germany and Slovakia, their Nations League performance was enough to secure a play-off berth.

However, Italy have not exactly been riding the crest of a wave of late with Gennaro Gattuso’s men finishing second in their group behind Norway, suffering a 3-0 away loss and 4-1 home hammering in their final group game.

“I suppose we would have preferred one of the other teams in Pot One, but to get to the World Cup, you’re going to have to beat two good teams”, added O’Neill.

“Italy away is going to be a massive game, a great game for us to be involved in. The expectation and pressure is very much on the Italians, so we will need to use that in our favour.

” I know they’ve lost home and away to Norway and the bulk of their squad is based in Serie A. Gattuso is their manager, so you will expect them not to be lacking in passion.

“We have four months to prepare for this and look at Italy in close detail, so the work will start today and tomorrow”.

That Italy could miss out on a third straight World Cup almost defies belief, considering they have won the competition four times in their history.

However, their failure to reach the 2018 tournament in Russia and Qatar 2022 both came as a result of play-off defeats.

That may give Northern Ireland hope, but O’Neill insisted his team must get their own house in order for their semi-final tie.

“The Italian team of now is not going to be the Italian team of eight years ago”, he countered.

“Not all their players are going to carry the burden of having been unsuccessful in play-off games. As a nation, they carry that burden, and the expectation of their crowd will be that they go to a World Cup.