{"id":2028,"date":"2026-04-01T09:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/2028\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T09:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:47:12","slug":"juventus-duo-produce-solid-displays-despite-italy-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/2028\/","title":{"rendered":"Juventus duo produce solid displays despite Italy heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the night ended on a sour note for Italy, Juventus stalwarts Manuel Locatelli and Federico Gatti did their part in Bosnia.<\/p>\n<p>The Azzurri will skip the World Cup for the third straight time after yet another play-off heartbreak, this time at the hands of Bosnia.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Italian began the play-offs on the right foot, beating Northern Ireland in the semi-finals by two goals to nil in Bergamo. However, they failed to complete the job in Bosnia.<\/p>\n<p>Manuel Locatelli pulled the strings for Italy<\/p>\n<p>Moise Kean gave the visitors the lead after 15 minutes, as they appeared to be on their way towards punching their ticket to the World Cup finals.<\/p>\n<p>However, Gennaro Gattuso\u2019s plans unravelled when Alessandro Bastoni received his marching orders for a late tackle while being the last defender.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Azzurri tried to hold on, but Haris Tabakovic ended their resistance in the 79th minute. Bosnia eventually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juvefc.com\/gravina-gattuso-buffon-bring-italy-failure\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:prevailed in the shootouts 4-1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;prevailed in the shootouts 4-1&quot;}\" class=\"link \">prevailed in the shootouts 4-1<\/a>, as Francesco Pio Esposito and Bryan Cristante failed to hit the target.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juventusnews24.com\/pagelle-bosnia-italia-voti-locatelli-gatti\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:JuventusNews24;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;JuventusNews24&quot;}\" class=\"link \">JuventusNews24<\/a> identifies Locatelli and Gatti as two of Italy\u2019s best performers. The Juventus captain was in the starting lineup, operating as a deep-lying playmaker.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old shielded the backline and had an important role in the buildup with his vertical plays.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Locatelli earned a 7\/10 rating, which is the highest among Italian players alongside Kean and Gianluigi Donnarumma.<\/p>\n<p>Federico Gatti put on a good shift at the back<\/p>\n<p>Gatti started his outing on the bench, but he came in just before half-time when Bastoni was sent off, replacing Mateo Retegui.<\/p>\n<p>The Juventus defender held his own at the back against Edin Dzeko and the rest of the Bosnian attackers, although he couldn\u2019t clear the cross that culminated in the equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The source gave the 27-year-old a solid 6.5\/10 rating, similar to Gianluca Mancini, Marco Palestra, Nicolo Barella and Sandro Tonali.<\/p>\n<p>Italy (3-5-2)\u00a0: Donnarumma 7; Mancini 6.5, Bastoni 4.5, Calafiori 6; Politano 5 (46\u2032 Palestra 6.5), Barella 6.5 (85\u2032 Frattesi 6), Locatelli 7 (71\u2032 Cristante 5), Tonali 6.5, Dimarco 6 (91\u2032 Spinazzola 6); Kean 7 (71\u2032 Esposito P. 6), Retegui 5.5 (44\u2032 Gatti 6.5).\u00a0\u00a0Coach\u00a0: Gennaro Gattuso 6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the night ended on a sour note for Italy, Juventus stalwarts Manuel Locatelli and Federico Gatti did&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[151,121,1528,115,171,693,143,443,694,1519,5,170,878,831,179,144,112,82,791],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-alessandro-bastoni","tag-bosnia","tag-bryan-cristante","tag-edin-dzeko","tag-federico-gatti","tag-francesco-pio-esposito","tag-gennaro-gattuso","tag-gianluca-mancini","tag-gianluigi-donnarumma","tag-haris-tabakovic","tag-italy","tag-juventus","tag-manuel-locatelli","tag-marco-palestra","tag-mateo-retegui","tag-moise-kean","tag-politano","tag-sandro-tonali","tag-spinazzola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028","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=2028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}