Will there be an upset? Northern Ireland plan to stun Italy

The World Cup play-off semi-final between Italy and Northern Ireland gave Gennaro Gattuso sleepless nights.

For four months, Italy has known what is stopping it from winning a first World Cup since 2014.

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Northern Ireland awaits in the play-off semi-finals, with the winners facing Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina for a place in Group B alongside co-hosts Canada, Switzerland and Qatar.

For the four-time winners, it seems almost unthinkable that they would fail.

Yet the same thing was said four years ago against North Macedonia, and even before that against Sweden.

For Northern Ireland and Michael O’Neill, it’s a chance to achieve something special as they aim for a first World Cup in 40 years.

As a player, Gattuso didn’t sleep before big matches. It’s the same as a manager but he now has the help of sleeping pills from his doctor.

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Otherwise, he says, “at 4:30 or 5 a.m., I wake up and my eyes are as wide as a bat.”

Gattuso carries the weight of a nation on his shoulders. It’s a big responsibility.

The former AC Milan midfielder replaced Luciano Spalletti in June and has won five of his six matches.

“I have been coaching for several years now, but this match is definitely the most important match of my coaching career so far,” Gattuso said.

“I am prepared and, believe me, I don’t think things are going bad, I think positively.

“I want to think big, and we will definitely be competitive and see how things go.”

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He has the admiration of O’Neill, who in 2012 was tasked with a similar job of trying to lift a low-lying Northern Ireland team.

Four years later, they qualified for the Euro.

“The pressure of managing Italy is very different to managing Northern Ireland,” O’Neill said.

“I have admiration for him coming in and taking the job at the time he did, after the previous coach left after two games and having to try and reverse a poor result in Italy’s first game in Norway.

“I have great admiration for what he did as a player and, obviously, for the work he did as a coach.”

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The roar of thunder

Throughout Gattuso’s press conference, Gianluigi Buffon sat quietly at the side of the room watching his World Cup-winning teammate speak.

Now Italy’s technical director, Buffon played a key role in appointing Gattuso to replace Spalletti in June, and he is also fully aware of the pressure on the Italians’ shoulders.

In contrast, by the time O’Neill arrived for his press conference, a storm had descended on Bergamo and the scorching sun, which the thousands of traveling fans had been enjoying, was replaced by lightning and thunder, which were so loud that they could be heard in the media room as O’Neill spoke.

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If Thursday’s game is as dramatic as the changing weather, then we’re all in for a treat.

O’Neill says his young team will play without fear.

“I have a lot of confidence in this group of players and it will be a young team that takes the field.

“I think the advantage you get with youth is the absence of fear. We have everything to gain in this game, there’s no doubt about that.

“In the last two years they have really grown and played a lot of international football.

“It will be a huge test for us, but it’s one that I think we’re ready to take.”

“It brought tears to my eyes”

The stakes are high for Italy and emotion should play a big role in Bergamo.

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La Gazzetta dello Sport, one of Italy’s biggest newspapers, published an interview with 2006 World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi, who said Gattuso reminded him of himself as a coach.

This, for Gattuso, “brought tears to my eyes.”

The fight and desire for Northern Ireland was a constant theme during Gattuso’s press conference, and it’s clear he wants his team to match that on Thursday.

As he said, “we are masters of our own destiny.”

“Above all, it’s up to us to decide.

“We have to go on the pitch and if we show in the stadium that we have money and we have no fear, then we can’t ask anything from anyone.

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“We know very well what we have to do. We have to make sure we are ready for this game, both physically and mentally.”

For O’Neill, he knows his team is confident they can achieve something special.

“I think we have to realize that we have done incredibly well to be in this position. There are a lot of nations bigger than us who are not at this stage of the competition.

“As a smaller nation and with the expectations placed on the home nation, we come into the game a little looser and with a little more freedom within ourselves.

“I’m incredibly proud of the players. They know what’s at stake.”