There is a high probability that Italy will not qualify for the World Cup. It is useless to win against Norway in the last round. They have to ask for help.

The Italian team defeated Israel 3-0 at home in the 8th round of Group I of the World Cup European Qualifiers. Even so, the Italian team, the four-time World Cup champion, will most likely miss the World Cup, and may even miss the World Cup for the third consecutive time! Italy currently ranks second in the group with 15 points, 3 points behind Norway, the group leader. Although there is still a direct confrontation between the two sides, the goal difference between the two teams is as high as 16! Therefore, even if Italy defeats Norway at home in the final round, it is possible that Italy will be ranked second in the group due to the goal difference and will participate in the World Cup qualifying play-offs for the third consecutive time. To advance directly, unless Estonia can show off its power and draw with Norway away from home in the next round.

There are 5 teams in Group I of the World Cup European Qualifiers, namely Italy, Norway, Israel, Estonia and Moldova. Since the number of teams is an odd number, one team will have a bye in each round. After 8 rounds of group matches, Norway ranked first in the group with 18 points and 6 wins, scored 29 goals and conceded 3 goals, and had a goal difference of 26. Italy ranked second in the group with 15 points and 5 wins and 1 loss in 6 games, scoring 18 goals and conceding 8 goals, with a goal difference of only 10. The only loss was a 0-3 away defeat to Norway in the third round; Israel ranked third in the group with 9 points from 7 games, 3 wins and 3 losses, Estonia ranked fourth in the group with 4 points from 7 games, 1 win, 1 draw and 5 losses, and Moldova was at the bottom of the group with 1 point from 6 games, 1 draw and 5 losses.

According to the World Cup promotion rules, the first-place team in each group directly advances to the United States, Canada and Mexico World Cup finals; the second-place team in each group will participate in the European play-offs to compete for the remaining places. In the group stage, each team's ranking is first based on points. If the points are the same, then the goal difference is then compared. Then the number of goals scored is compared. If the above are the same, then the records of each other are compared. Judging from the current points situation, Norway and Italy have locked in the top two in the group. The results of the last two rounds will determine which team directly advances to the World Cup and which team participates in the play-offs.

Compared with the Italian team, the Norwegian team is in a good position to qualify, not only because they lead in points, but also because they have an astonishing 26 goal difference. The last two games of the Norwegian team were against Estonia at home and against Italy away from home. In the first round, Norway defeated Estonia 1-0 away from home and defeated Italy 3-0 at home. Judging from the strength comparison and past battle results, there is a high probability that the Norwegian team will easily defeat Estonia at home in the ninth round. In this way, in the final round against Italy in the away game, as long as they do not lose by a huge score, they will participate in the US-Canada-Mexico World Cup as the first place in the group.

For Italy, it is now only theoretically possible to directly advance to the World Cup finals as the first in the group. First of all, they need to defeat Moldova, the weakest team in the group, away from home in the 9th round, and to get as much goal difference as possible. In the first round, Italy only defeated its opponent 2-0 at home. Judging from the past records of the two sides, although Italy maintained a complete victory, its biggest victory was the 6-0 victory in the 2020 friendly match.

Assuming that Italy beats Moldova 6-0 again, and the Norwegian team only gets 1 goal difference against Estonia, then after the 9th round, the Norwegian team will have 21 points and 27 goal differences, and the Italian team will have 18 points and 16 goal differences. The gap between the two sides will be 3 points and 11 goal differences. This means that in the last round, Italy not only needs to defeat Norway at home, but also has to beat its opponent by more than 6 goals. Italy has played against Norway in the last 6 times, with a record of 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. The most one win was by two goals, and the most recent time was a 0-3 away loss to Norway. Therefore, it is an impossible task for Italy to overtake Norway through goal difference when the points are the same.

Therefore, if Italy wants to directly qualify for the World Cup finals as the first in the group, the two games in the 9th round are crucial. First, Italy needs to defeat Moldova. It does not matter how many goal difference they win, because no matter how many wins they win, they will not be able to catch up with Norway; the most important thing is that Italy needs to win. With the help of Estonia, they blocked the Norwegian team in the away game in the 9th round. Estonia only needs to draw with Norway in the away game to reduce the point difference between Italy and Norway to 1 point. In this way, if Italy can defeat Norway at home in the 10th round, it will be able to take first place in the group with its points advantage and no need to compare goal difference with Norway.

If the Italian team ends up second in the group, they can only participate in the European play-offs and compete with the remaining 15 teams for the last four tickets in the European region. According to the European quota allocation plan, the 12 second-place teams and the 4 best-performing UEFA Nations League first-place teams in the 2024-25 season will be divided into 4 groups, with 4 teams in each group. There will be two semi-finals and 1 final. The winning teams of the 4 group finals will receive the last 4 World Cup places in the European region.

Is this competition system familiar? In the 2022 World Cup European play-offs, Italy was in the same group as Portugal, Türkiye and North Macedonia. As a result, they lost to North Macedonia in the semi-finals and missed the World Cup. Although the European play-off format of the 2018 World Cup was different, Italy lost to Sweden by a total score of two rounds. So if the Italian team cannot win the group and directly advance to the World Cup, it will have to face the embarrassing situation of participating in the play-offs three times in a row. What is even more embarrassing is that they lost the first two times!

So, now Estonia has become the savior of the Italians. If they can draw or even defeat the Norwegian team, then the Italian team can take their destiny into their own hands in the final round. Italy, which is ranked 10th in the world, has to pin its hopes of participating in the World Cup on Estonia, which is ranked 129th in the world. It has to be said to be a huge irony!

Note: The picture comes from the Internet.