{"id":1900,"date":"2026-04-01T04:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/1900\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T04:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:29:12","slug":"how-italys-two-missed-penalty-kicks-esmir-bajraktarevics-winner-sent-bosnia-and-herzegovina-to-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/1900\/","title":{"rendered":"How Italy’s two missed penalty kicks, Esmir Bajraktarevic’s winner sent Bosnia and Herzegovina to 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Italy’s two missed penalty kicks, Esmir Bajraktarevic’s winner sent Bosnia and Herzegovina to 2026 World Cup<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bosnia and Herzegovina is heading to the 2026 World Cup courtesy of some drama.<\/p>\n

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In Tuesday’s World Cup 2026 UEFA play-off final, Bosnia officially locked in a spot in this summer’s international event by winning a match vs. Italy that featured plenty of tension, including three yellow cards and a red card.<\/p>\n

The Italians took the early lead, but after being forced to play down a man from the 42nd minute on due to a first-half red card issues to Alessandro Bastoni, Bosnia\u00a0managed to tie it in the 79th minute and force extra time. In the end, after Bosnia put up a ton of shots thanks to the man advantage, it came down to a penalty shootout \u2014 and two rough missed kicks from Italy, plus Esmir Bajraktarevic’s winning kick, secured Bosnia’s shootout advantage and a trip to the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the penalty shootout kicks that sent Bosnia and Herzegovina to the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

MORE: How\u00a0Alessandro Bastoni’s red card doomed Italy in another failed World Cup bid<\/a><\/p>\n

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Italy missed penalty kicks vs. Bosnia<\/p>\n

After Italy took a 1-0 lead earlier in the match, despite a heroic effort from goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma with 10 saves, a red card wound up coming back to haunt the team \u2014 as did missed penalty kicks later on.<\/p>\n

Bosnia put up a massive 30-9 advantage in shots over the course of the matchup, including extra time, but was unable to take the lead after\u00a0Haris Tabakovic tied it at one in the 79th minute. Extra time came and passed with no winner, and a penalty shootout \u2014 with a World Cup bid on the line \u2014 began.<\/p>\n

Italy struggled in the shootout, however. After\u00a0Benjamin Tahirovic found the back of the net for Bosnia’s first kick, Francesco Pio Esposito airmailed his attempt to secure his opponent’s advantage.<\/p>\n

Haris Tabakovic and\u00a0Sandro Tonali then traded penalty-kick goals to keep it interesting. However, when\u00a0Kerim Alajbegovic scored for Bosnia, then\u00a0Bryan Cristante missed another for Italy by hitting the bar, all it took was one more kick to send\u00a0Bosnia and Herzegovina to the World Cup.<\/p>\n

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With just two missed attempts, Italy’s World Cup fate began to collapse.<\/p>\n

Esmir Bajraktarevic winning penalty kick goal vs. Italy<\/p>\n

With just one kick, albeit a penalty kick,\u00a0Bajraktarevic, who is from Wisconsin but switched his allegiance to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2024, stepped up to send the country to the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

He secured the shootout advantage for Bosnia, in-hand securing\u00a0the country’s second World Cup finals since becoming an independent nation. The celebrations began, as\u00a0Bajraktarevic’s kick getting past\u00a0Donnarumma sent the hosts into a frenzy.<\/p>\n

MORE: Full highlights, updates, more from\u00a0Italy vs. Bosnia\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How Italy’s two missed penalty kicks, Esmir Bajraktarevic’s winner sent Bosnia and Herzegovina to 2026 World Cup originally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[97,151,61,1528,697,1716,693,694,1519,5,1147,1715,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-1900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-2026-world-cup","9":"tag-alessandro-bastoni","10":"tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","11":"tag-bryan-cristante","12":"tag-esmir-bajraktarevic","13":"tag-fox-soccer","14":"tag-francesco-pio-esposito","15":"tag-gianluigi-donnarumma","16":"tag-haris-tabakovic","17":"tag-italy","18":"tag-penalty-shootout","19":"tag-penalty-kick","20":"tag-sandro-tonali"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900","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=1900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}