Italy need only a draw against Ukraine to qualify for EURO 2024, but despite a Federico Chiesa brace and Jorginho missed penalty, North Macedonia again made it a tough slog.
The Azzurri knew they needed four points from this game and Monday’s showdown with Ukraine to secure qualification and avoid the play-offs. Infamously, they lost to North Macedonia in the 2022 World Cup play-off semi-finals, then drew 1-1 in September on Luciano Spalletti’s debut, so it was by no means to be taken for granted.
Giovanni Di Lorenzo was suspended, with the likes of Alessandro Bastoni, Giorgio Scalvini, Mateo Retegui, Manuel Locatelli, Rafael Toloi and Lorenzo Pellegrini injured, so Jorginho returned for the first time since the Nations League Final Four.
Bojan Dimoski should’ve been booked for a late tackle that left Federico Chiesa clutching his knee and requiring treatment in the opening minute.
Giacomo Raspadori had the ball in the back of the net on 13 minutes, but had made the run just a moment too early and was caught offside.
Chiesa stung the goalkeeper’s gloves at the near post after combining with Giacomo Bonaventura and Italy scored from the resulting short corner, as Giacomo Raspadori floated a ball to the back post for the head of Matteo Darmian. It was only his second goal for the Nazionale, the other was eight years ago.
Jovan Manev made a decisive block to prevent Chiesa turning in Bonaventura’s assist from 12 yards. On another corner, Federico Gatti’s header was charged down from point-blank range by Serafimov’s raised arm for a penalty.
Jorginho immediately took the ball, hoping for redemption after his two desperately poor penalties cost Italy 2022 World Cup qualification. Instead, he stepped up with the traditional hop, skip and a terribly weak prod that was easily saved by Dimitrievski.
Barely a minute had passed when Italy doubled their lead anyway, as Nicolò Barella with a back-heel flick found Chiesa on the edge of the box for a ferocious low right-foot drive into the far bottom corner.
Chiesa wasn’t done yet, as in first half stoppages the Juventus man ran onto a Berardi through ball, cut inside the defender and what was meant to be a curling finish took a deflection to loop into the far top corner.
Straight after the restart, Chiesa nutmegged a defender to release Raspadori, whose angled drive forced a one-handed save.
However, North Macedonia scored from their first corner of the match, which was taken short for substitute Jani Atanasov to spring the offside trap with a glancing header.
Italy tried to restore the three-goal cushion with Raspadori pulling back from the by-line, but both Bonaventura and Barella went for it, allowing the save from point-blank range.
Dimitrievski also got his fingertips to a Federico Dimarco curler and ex-Roma player Nicolò Zaniolo was loudly jeered when coming off the bench by some of the local fans.
The tension grew at the Olimpico when Atanasov got Macedonia back into the game with a hopeful strike from distance that took a big deflection off Francesco Acerbi to wrongfoot Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Raspadori allowed them all to breathe a sigh of relief with the fourth goal, as Barella threaded through for the Napoli striker to take a touch and place the finish across the goalkeeper from a tricky angle.
Gianluca Scamacca came off the bench and almost scored with his first touch, but the lob was off target from Barella’s pass.
Stephan El Shaarawy swept in the Dimarco pull-back with the inside of the left boot from 12 yards to round out the scoreline.
Italy 5-2 N Macedonia
Darmian 17 (I), Chiesa 41, 45 (I), Atanasov 51, 74 (M), Raspadori 81 (I), El Shaarawy 94 (I)
Saved penalty: Jorginho 40 (I)
Player statistic
| Matteo Darmian (Assist: Giacomo Raspadori) |
 |
17' | ||
| Jorginho |  |
38' | ||
| Federico Chiesa (Assist: Nicolò Barella) |
|
41' | ||
| Federico Chiesa (Assist: Domenico Berardi) |
|
45+3' |
| 52' | |
Jani Atanasov (Assist: Ezgjan Alioski) | ||
| Nicolò Zaniolo |  |
72' | ||
| 74' | |
Jani Atanasov | ||
| 79' | |
Darko Churlinov | ||
| Giacomo Raspadori (Assist: Nicolò Barella) |
|
81' | ||
| 81' | |
Stefan Ashkovski | ||
| 84' | |
Milan Ristovski | ||
| 87' | |
Nikola Serafimov | ||
| Francesco Acerbi | |
89' | ||
| Stephan El Shaarawy (Assist: Federico Dimarco) |
|
90+4' |
Match statistic
Until end of Monday, I don’t need any updates from Chiesa…
Good performance, Chiesa the man
Italy should always be ready to play aggressively to score first and not play catch up .
In this game one more goal and the game could have turned against Italy.
I like the way they played and I like the team .
Forza Azzurri per semre
Play the same team on Monday – or don’t make lots of changes at the very least. The team plays well and is confident.
play agressive and play with hate vengece copy eastern euro teams its a sham that ballotelli is not there solid as rock strong bullet shot what were lacking