World Cup: Northern Ireland's hopes dashed in play-off loss to Italy

Northern Ireland's dream of reaching this summer's World Cup ended on Thursday night with a 2-0 play-off semi-final defeat to Italy.

It always looked like a tall order for Michael O'Neill's young team to pull off an historic result - the average age of the side which started in Bergamo was just 22.5 - and the heat was on hosts Italy after failing to qualify for the finals in both 2018 and 2022.

Thanks to goals in the second half from Newcastle's Sandro Tonali and Fiorentina striker Moise Kean, the four-time World Cup winners moved a step closer to booking their place at the tournament in North America.

Italy will now face Bosnia-Herzegovina on Tuesday (March 31) as they look to complete the job.

Although missing Premier League pair Conor Bradley and Dan Ballard for the clash due to injury, Northern Ireland were a match for the Italians in the first half and deservedly went into the break level at 0-0.

However, the home side opened the scoring on 56 minutes when Isaac Price's defensive header dropped to Tonali on the edge of the penalty area and he hammered a half-volley through a crowd past goalkeeper Pierce Charles.

Charles denied ex-Everton forward Kean from doubling the lead 10 minutes later, while at the other end Italy survived a scare as Gianluigi Donnarumma's pass out of defence was nearly pounced upon by Jamie Donley.

With around 10 minutes left, Kean went close to scoring with an acrobatic effort that narrowly missed the target but he did find the goal to seal Northern Ireland's fate a minute later when he latched onto a searching pass from Tonali and cut inside Ruairi McConville before picking out the bottom corner with the help of the post.

A proud Michael O'Neill paid tribute to the performance from his side.

"I couldn’t ask any more from the players," O’Neill told the Press Association. "Our game plan in the first half is excellent. We gave them very few chances.

"We obviously had to defend corners, which we defended extremely well, and had a good chance from a corner ourselves that we could have done better from.

"Ultimately in the second half we caused our own problems a lot," he said.

"We had a couple of nervous moments before the goal and we’re just out of shape. It’s not a great header (from Price) and then it lands with the wrong man, Tonali, who strikes a great ball.

"Once you’re behind in the game it’s difficult but I thought our attitude throughout the game, our level of performance, was terrific," O'Neill added.

"It’s hard when you lose a game to realise the positives. The players are disappointed and you have to feel that disappointment with them.

"But for a nation of our size, to come with a team of that age, play as we did, there’s a lot more positives."

Italy boss Gennaro Gattuso described the game as a 'struggle' and said that Northern Ireland's approach was not what he had been expecting.

"Northern Ireland surprised us," he said. "We expected them to be far more vertical but they did try to pass it around.

"After 15 or 20 minutes we realised that and moved better. Our mentality and our tactics in the first half were not what we wanted."

Northern Ireland are set for a friendly with Wales in Cardiff on Tuesday, who were beaten on penalties by Bosnia in their semi-final.

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