Italy keep World Cup hopes ticking over but Gattuso worried by fragility

Paris: Own goals. Uncharacteristic defensive lapses. General disorder. But lots of attacking flair.

If the idea in hiring Gennaro Gattuso to replace the fired Luciano Spalletti was to restore order and discipline to Italy’s under-pressure squad — which is still facing the possibility of failing to qualify for a third straight World Cup — there’s still plenty of work to be done.

Italy’s 5-4 victory over Israel in a World Cup qualifier in the Hungarian city of Debrecen on Monday was, Gattuso acknowledged, “the craziest game I’ve been involved with as a coach”.

“But that’s my fault and not down to the players,” Gattuso added. “If we want to play in a certain way, we need to get better at this. We were crazy to systematically go on the attack. That’s what Israel was waiting for. They hit us on the counter every time.”

Italy helped Israel with two own goals, and the game wasn’t decided until Sandro Tonali’s curled winner in stoppage time.

“We’ll take the win which was crucial for us, but we’re completely nuts, nuts because we conceded some absurd goals,” said Gattuso. “We need to work on that because we’re too fragile, we concede goals too easily. The boys know that, but this is my problem to fix.”

Still, it was a victory and three more points after Italy also scored a handful of goals in Gattuso’s debut in charge, a 5-0 win over Estonia on Friday.

The results meant that Italy leapfrogged Israel into second place in Group ‘I’. Norway, who were hosting Moldova on Tuesday, lead the group with a perfect 12 points from four games. Italy are next with nine points from four games followed by Israel with nine points from five games.

Winning the group is the only way to ensure direct qualification to next year’s tournament in North America. The second-placed team goes into the playoffs, the stage where Italy was eliminated by Sweden and North Macedonia and ruled out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively.

But at least Italy, which started qualifying with a 3-0 loss at Norway, are now in position to make the playoffs.

The game was played less than a month after the Italian Football Coaches’ Association said it wrote a formal letter calling for Israel to be suspended over the war in Gaza. Some in the largely empty stadium seemed to whistle during the Israeli anthem.

Israel, whose players donned black armbands in honour of the victims of Monday’s deadly shooting at a bus stop in east Jerusalem, twice took the lead — first from an own goal.

Moise Kean found space among the Israeli defense to score each side of halftime, leveling the score on both occasions. Matteo Politano finally gave Italy the lead in the 59th minute off a backheeled flick assist from Mateo Retegui, and Giacomo Raspadori scored a fourth on 81 minutes.

A second Dor Peretz strike in the 88th minute and a clumsy Alessandro Bastoni own-goal two minutes later made it appear Italy were on course for a disastrous result.

But Tonali hit a speculative curling shot in the first minute of stoppage time which seemed unthreatening but found its way through a crowd of players and into the net to spark wild celebrations as the topsy-turvy encounter held one last surprise.

Sweden’s slow start to their qualifying campaign continued into matchday two as they went down 2-0 to Kosovo in Pristina.

The Swedes now sit on just one point after a last-gasp equaliser by Slovenia condemned them to a 2-2 draw on Friday.

Goals in the first half by Elvis Rexhbecaj and Vedat Muriqi were enough to give Kosovo just their second-ever win in World Cup qualifying.

Augsburg midfielder Rexhbecaj bundled the hosts ahead on 26 minutes after goalkeeper Robin Olsen saved his initial one-on-one effort.

Kosovan captain Muriqi then doubled the lead three minutes before the interval with a powerful strike from the edge of the box.

Premier League record signing Isak was sent on from the bench to try and salvage something for the Swedes inside the final 20 minutes.

The Liverpool star had a chance to halve the deficit on 85 minutes but was stoutly denied by ‘keeper Arijanet Muric as Kosovo moved second in Group ‘B’ despite finishing with 10 men.

“[Isak] had only done three training sessions with the team,” Sweden boss Jon Dahl Tomasson told Viaplay. “He had no pre-season with the team and of course no playing time,” he added of the 25-year-old who endured a turbulent departure from former club Newcastle.

Switzerland, who beat Kosovo 4-0 last week, stay top of the pool following a dominant first-half display in Basel against Slovenia.

The home side ran out 3-0 winners after goals by Nico Elvedi, Breel Embolo and Dan Ndoye inside the first 40 minutes.

Croatia eased past Montenegro 4-0 to top Group ‘L’ after Montenegro’s Andrija Bulatovic was sent off for two bookings in the space of eight minutes before halftime.

Kristijan Jakic opened the scoring in Zag­reb, before Montenegro were reduced to 10 men.

Andrej Kramaric went clear at the top of the qualification goal-scoring chart with his sixth goal of the campaign on 51 minutes, before a late Edvin Kuc own-goal and an Ivan Perisic strike put gloss on the result.

The 2018 World Cup runners-up leapfrogged Czech Republic atop the table with both countries boasting 12 points, although Croatia have a match in hand.

Faroe Islands moved to third in the group with a 1-0 win over Gibraltar

Denmark and Scotland are level on four points at the top of Group ‘C’ after the Danes beat Greece 3-0 and Scotland won against Belarus 2-0.