{"id":1888,"date":"2026-04-01T04:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/1888\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T04:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:01:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-play-offs-italy-stunned-on-penalties-as-arsenal-fc-star-sends-sweden-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/1888\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026 play-offs: Italy stunned on penalties as Arsenal FC star sends Sweden through"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/italy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Italy <\/a>missed out on playing at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/world-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Cup<\/a> for a third straight time after the Azzurri were beaten on penalties in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/play-offs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">play-offs<\/a> by Bosnia-Herzegovina. <\/p>\n<p>Gennaro Gattuso\u2019s side laboured to a 1-1 draw in Zenica, in a game where Alessandro Bastoni was sent off. <\/p>\n<p>Moise Kean opened the scoring on 15 minutes for the Italians, but Haris Tabakovic levelled on 79 minutes to force an additional half-hour and eventually spot-kicks. <\/p>\n<p>Francesco Esposito missed Italy\u2019s first penalty as the host stormed into a 3-1 lead, and Bryan Cristante was denied with the fourth, handing Esmir Bajraktarevic the chance to send Sergej Barbarez\u2019s men to Canada, Mexico and the United States this summer. <\/p>\n<p>He duly did so, and the 2006 world champions were denied their entry to this year\u2019s edition. <\/p>\n<p>Bosnia-Herzegovina had already defeated Wales on penalties at the Principality Stadium in the semi-final last week, and stepped up to the spot once more to book their plane tickets.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/sweden\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sweden<\/a> snuck past Poland in a topsy-turvy affair at the Strawberry Arena. <\/p>\n<p>Former Chelsea and West Ham boss Graham Potter, who recently signed a new deal with the Swedes, led his side to a 3-2 victory, with Anthony Elanga opening the scoring and Arsenal\u2019s Viktor Gyokeres netting a dramatic late winner. <\/p>\n<p>Nicola Zalewski had equalised for the Poles in the first half before Gustaf Lagerbielke restored the hosts\u2019 advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Karol Swiderski levelled once more ten minutes into the second period, before Gyokeres struck two minutes from time. <\/p>\n<p>Kerem Akturkoglu\u2019s strike was enough to send Turkey through against Romania, while the Czech Republic &#8211; who defeated Ireland on penalties in their semi-final &#8211; needed spot-kicks once more to eke past Denmark. <\/p>\n<p>Manchester United loanee Rasmus Hojlund missed from the spot for the Danes, as did Brentford\u2019s Mathias Jensen. West Ham\u2019s Tomas Soucek tucked his penalty away for the Czechs. <\/p>\n<p>In the inter-confederation tournament over in Mexico, five confederations did battle for the final two spots at this year\u2019s World Cup. <\/p>\n<p>Jamaica took on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/dr-congo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DR Congo<\/a> having seen off New Caledonia in their semi-final, while Bolivia faced off against Iraq after sneaking past Suriname. <\/p>\n<p>World Cup play-offs results in full<\/p>\n<p>Wales<a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/sport\/football\/wales-vs-bosnia-herzegovina-world-cup-playoff-b1276668.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> 1-1<\/a> Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia-Herzegovina won 4-2 on pens)<\/p>\n<p>Italy<a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/sport\/football\/italy-vs-northern-ireland-world-cup-play-off-result-tonali-kean-goals-b1276636.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> 2-0<\/a> Northern Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Denmark 4-0 North Macedonia<\/p>\n<p>Czech Republic 2-2 Ireland (Czech Republic won 4-3 on pens)<\/p>\n<p>Czech Republic 1-1 Denmark (Czech Republic won 3-1 on pens)<\/p>\n<p>Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-1 Italy (Bosnia-Herzegovina won 4-1 on pens)<\/p>\n<p>Inter-confederation play-offs<\/p>\n<p>New Caledonia 0-1 Jamaica<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy missed out on playing at the World Cup for a third straight time after the Azzurri were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1033,5,495],"class_list":{"0":"post-1888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-dr-congo","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-sweden"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","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=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}