What the Italians and Portuguese feared has just materialized.
The World Cup play-off draw placed the two selections in the same table.
Concretely, the two teams will each play a match before a "final" to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
A final confrontation which could therefore oppose them in the event of victory of one and the other in the first match.
To discover
Qualifying rankings for the 2022 World Cup
The 2022 World Cup qualifying calendar
Italy will face North Macedonia while Portugal host Turkey. If the two selections are successful, the "final" between the two mastodons would take place in Portugal. Both selections failed to qualify directly for the World Cup in the qualifiers. Fernando Santos' men lost at home to Serbia on the final day (1-2) while Roberto Mancini's were held in check in Northern Ireland (0-0). Two poor performances all the more frustrating for the two formations, as they had their destiny in their hands to avoid the winding road of the dams. The disaster scenario has therefore taken place for these two teams.
Among other fixtures, Wales will host Austria while Ukraine move to Scotland in Table 1. In the second table, Russia will host Poland while the Czech Republic will challenge Sweden.
The meetings will take place from March 24 to 29, 2022.
