Italy risk missing their first World Cup since 1958 and one of the players in that squad, Gino Pivatelli, reveals “we had to live with that for the rest of our lives.”
Sweden won the first leg of the play-off 1-0 in Solna on Friday evening and the decider is on Monday at San Siro.
The only time the Azzurri failed to qualify for the biggest tournament was in 1958, when losing 2-1 to Northern Ireland on January 15, 1958.
That put them second in the group behind Northern Ireland, but ahead of Portugal.
Italy risk missing their first World Cup since 1958 and one of the players in that squad, Gino Pivatelli, reveals “we had to live with that for the rest of our lives.”
Sweden won the first leg of the play-off 1-0 in Solna on Friday evening and the decider is on Monday at San Siro.
The only time the Azzurri failed to qualify for the biggest tournament was in 1958, when losing 2-1 to Northern Ireland on January 15, 1958.
That put them second in the group behind Northern Ireland, but ahead of Portugal.
“That night we couldn’t sleep. We wandered around the streets of Belfast, ran into some reporters who told us it was better not to read the papers the next morning,” revealed 84-year-old Pivatelli in La Repubblica.
“If we had played another 100 times, we would’ve won 100 to 1, but we lost that night and carried the shame for years. We had to live with that for the rest of our lives.
“It’s a wound that is still re-opened every now and then and still hurts.”
Pivatelli had some suspicions as to the refereeing and made some bizarre allegations.
“The Hungarian referee Zsolt was stuck in London due to bad weather, so in his place it was officiated by a Northern Ireland ref with a belly and looked half-drunk. It ended 2-2, was considered a friendly and we had to play it again in January.
“It was one of those situations that can never be repeated.”