Jorginho, an Italy midfielder, claims he will be “haunted for life” by his country’s penalty failures in the World Cup play-offs against North Macedonia.
On Thursday night, the Azzurri were startled by their opponents as Alexander Trajkovski scored the game-winning goal in a 1-0 victory for North Macedonia.
It was possibly their most significant victory in the team’s history, and they are now just one game away from their first-ever World Cup.
Italy had been one of the favorites to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since their humiliating group stage defeat in Brazil in 2014.
Despite their perfect record, Roberto Mancini’s team came up short, drawing four of their eight games and losing one.
They drew both of their matches against their Swiss neighbors, a 1-1 tie at home and a goalless draw at Zurich.
Jorginho missed important penalties in both games, so it’s no surprise that the Chelsea midfielder blames himself for the team’s elimination.
He told RAI Sport, through Football Italia, that “it hurts when I think about it because I still think about it and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Stepping up there twice and being unable to assist your team and country is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and it weighs heavily on me.” People tell us we need to keep our heads up and keep going, but it’s difficult.”
Against Italy, there were 30 efforts on goal. For Jorginho, 30, it may have been his last chance to play at a World Cup. And the Italy star struggled to comprehend how they didnāt win the game as Italy were left to reflect on their glaring missed opportunities.
āIt is difficult to explain what happened. It hurts so much,ā he added. “Iāll be honest, I am still incredulous. I donāt think we lacked creativity, as we always dominated matches and created so many chances. Unfortunately, we were unable to finish them off.
āWe played good football, we won the European Championship last summer, but unfortunately in the last few games we made small errors and were unable to recover from them. They made the difference.ā