Italy Narrowly Avoids Catastrophe in Nine Goal Slug-Fest | OneFootball

Monday, September 8 UEFA World Cup Qualifying Results

Israel 4 – 5 Italy

Most soccer games rarely see five goals scored by one team, let alone 5 – 4 scorelines.

But today in Hungary (Israel may not host home matches for security reasons) we saw a fantastically crazy match against Italy.

The Azzuri have had a challenging qualifying campaign. Before the opening whistle they sat in third position after three games played, six points behind leaders Norway. Only a stoppage time goal from Sandro Tonali saved Italy from what would have been a near-fatal stumble, and guaranteed evisceration from the Italian press. Actually, the latter is probably still going to happen.

Such backlash is expected when you score two own-goals in the space of fifteen minutes. The first one, a poor punch from Gianluigi Donnarumma, was called back when the referee deemed a foul had been committed against the keeper in the six-yard box. The second, however, had no deus ex machina, as Manuel Locatelli redirected a Dan Biton cross into his net. Locatelli nearly redeemed himself at 31 minutes with a terrific side-volley that struck the crossbar. Moise Kean equalized just before halftime.

Unleash the Chaos

The second half was a wild one. Israel scored in the 52nd; Italy answered in the 54th. A quick throw-in in the 58th led to Matteo Pollitano’s go-ahead goal. When Giacomo Raspadori put the visitors up 4 -2 in the 81st surely the game had to be locked down. Nope. It went completely off the rails.

Roy Ravivo fired a blistering pass across the goal face in the 86th. Alessandro Bastoni tried to clear; but it blazed past a flat-footed Donnarumma into the net for the second (counted) own-goal of the night. Gifted a free kick in the attacking third, Israel pulled off some training ground magic with a set-piece routine that tied it up with less than a minute in regulation. But the drama wasn’t over. Tonali found himself with space around twenty-five yards out. He took a hopeful shot that slipped through a crowd of players. Goalkeeper Daniel Peretz either couldn’t see it in time, or was waiting for a deflection, and the ball skipped right past his late save attempt. Loopy.

Kosovo 2 – 0 Sweden

If Hamlet had been set in Göteborg and not Elsinore, the phrase: “There’s something rotten in the state of Sweden” would be an apt one.

First there was Friday’s 2 – 2 draw against Slovenia, who sit 21 places below Sweden in the FIFA rankings. Now a loss to 95th ranked Kosovo, who are 66 places below them. I don’t give too much credit to the FIFA rankings, but all my soccer warning bells go haywire when I see such a result.

Kosovo’s first goal will cause Sweden nightmares. After a hard shot from Viktor Gyökeres was stopped, a long-ball fired deep from Kosovar territory by Dion Gallapeni caught the Swedish defenders too deep, and Elvis Rexhbeçaj beat them to the ball. He juked one defender and took his shot, but Robin Olson blocked it. What happened next presaged that it wasn’t to be Sweden’s night, as Olson’s block rebounded straight to Rexhbeçaj’s right foot, and he passed it into the net.

Kosovo’s second goal was almost a mirror image of the first. A Swedish shot was blocked and Kosovo regained possession and placed a long pass into space. In this instance there were two Kosovars on the counter. Albion Rrahmani drove the ball forward, drawing the Swedish defenders. Meanwhile Vedat Muriqi ran an overlap, took Rrahmani’s pass and first-time belted it into the near corner. It was a picture-perfect counter-strike.

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