The Azzurri beat Northern Ireland 2-0<\/a> in Bergamo last Thursday in a pretty routine victory in the semifinals of UEFA’s playoffs to set up this final for a World Cup spot. Gennaro Gattuso’s side weren’t at their fluid best last week but they look robust and solid defensively in a 3-5-2 system. Italy haven’t been at the World Cup since 2014, and haven’t got out of the group stage at a World Cup since they won it all in 2006, so the pressure is on.<\/p>\nBosnia and Herzegovina pulled off an upset in their win at Wales on Thursday and will relish the role as heavy underdogs as they aim to qualify for just their second-ever World Cup and first since 2014. Veteran striker Edin Dzeko headed home a late equalizer against Wales and the Balkan minnows prevailed on penalty kicks to host this epic final against Italy.<\/p>\n
Bosnia and Herzegovina team news, focus<\/p>\n
Dzeko is the main man up top and delivered when his country needed him most agains Wales. He will lead the line and fellow veterans Sead Kolasinac and Nikola Katic will try to keep things solid at the back. Goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj was excellent against Wales and will have to be on top of his game once again if Bosnia and Herzegovina are going to pull off the upset. This team should not be underestimated and their players are from plenty of big clubs in Italy, Germany and Europe’s other top five leagues.<\/p>\n
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Italy team news, focus<\/p>\n
Gattuso will go with a 3-5-2 again and rely on Nicolo Barella and Sandro Tonali breaking forward from midfield to support the two central forwards Mateo Retegui and Moise Kean. The wing backs are so important to the way this Italian side play and Politano on the right and Dimarco on the left will play high up the pitch and whip in plenty of crosses.<\/p>\n
Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Italy prediction<\/p>\n
This is going to be really, really tight and don’t rule out extra time. But Italy will just about get the job done to reach the World Cup. Bosnia and Herzegovina 1-2 Italy.<\/p>\n
How to watch Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Italy live, stream link and start time<\/p>\n
Kick off time: 2:45pm ET Tuesday (March 31)<\/p>\n
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Venue: Bilino Polje \u2014 Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/p>\n
TV Channel: Fox Sports 1<\/p>\n
Streaming: Fox Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy are the overwhelming favorites as they head to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday, with the winner claiming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[151,1651,61,1528,235,889,115,697,39,1519,5,179,144,234,173,112,82,233,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-1810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-alessandro-bastoni","9":"tag-bnh","10":"tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","11":"tag-bryan-cristante","12":"tag-dimarco","13":"tag-donnarumma","14":"tag-edin-dzeko","15":"tag-esmir-bajraktarevic","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-haris-tabakovic","18":"tag-italy","19":"tag-mateo-retegui","20":"tag-moise-kean","21":"tag-nikola-vasilj","22":"tag-pio-esposito","23":"tag-politano","24":"tag-sandro-tonali","25":"tag-uefa-world-cup","26":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}