The home draw at home to Macedonia, who were ranked 103rd in the world in September, was the biggest humiliation for the Italian national team since they were eliminated from the group stage of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and naturally caused a lot of controversy. And having failed to get all three points as they wanted, the Azzurri's current 20 points will not allow them to secure a place in the play-offs by finishing second in the eight-best group, and they will not know the result until all of their games are played tomorrow. The worst news is that the Italians will have to win their away game against Albania in three days' time, which will undoubtedly increase the pressure.

And just when everyone was arguing about what caused the national team to encounter such an embarrassing situation, Italy's "Sky Sports" broke the news that these active international players had a private meeting together after training on the afternoon of the 8th. It is reported that the meeting was organized by several senior players in the team to discuss the reasons for the team's recent poor form and the reason for the team's recent draw by Macedonia. Italy coach Ventura, team staff and officials of the Italian Football Federation were not involved in the meeting. It was reported that although they had been informed earlier, the players did not want them to join and asked them to leave.

This kind of rare thing has not happened before, but every time it happens, it is basically followed by a drastic change, so many people from the outside world have begun to speculate whether the international players are unifying their minds and preparing to give advice to the head coach who has risen to the position with seniority and has no special highlights in his coaching career. However, while some of the less popular media were enumerating who the most likely successor was, nothing was revealed about the national team, except for the fact that before the departure for Albania, the captain of the team, Gianluigi Buffon, stressed the team's determination to win when he was surrounded by a large number of reporters at the airport, and said nothing about the rest.

Immediately, Italy's largest media such as "Corriere della Sera" and "La Repubblica" published the chairman of the Football Association for the national team's strong support for the head coach, saying that Tavicio believes that changing the coach in this critical period is undoubtedly the worst decision, and everyone still gives 100% trust in the team and Ventura, and believes that they will take advantage of this training opportunity to run in the lineup, so as to get the ticket to Russia next year.

After the penultimate round of qualifying, since the final score of the second place in Group H can only be 19 points at most, the Italian team, which has 20 points in hand, has actually qualified for the play-offs in advance, and this last game does not matter whether it is won or lost. But everyone still hopes that the team can play with the momentum that a world champion should have, and not be as muddy and unprofessional as three days ago. Of course, more people are still expecting Ventura to seize this last opportunity to change his tactics and prepare for the upcoming play-offs.

Regardless of what fans and professionals think, at least until the final round of the group stage and the play-offs in November, the Azzurri's coaching staff will not make any changes, and this is the end of this civilian-initiated change of managerial turmoil. And the fierce battle on the night of the 9th, although the result was still barely acceptable to everyone, but anyone who watched the whole process could not see how good the Italian team was, and it seemed that the meeting of the previous day was in vain. Judging from the process of the game, this ball is not as big as the advantage of the last draw Macedonia, although it is a win, but it is more luck to help, otherwise the final situation is really hard to say.

In this away game, Ventura still hasn't come to his senses, he doesn't seem to know what it means to focus on stability, and he has put out a seemingly decent 4-4-2 formation. However, the two wingers were played by the wingers of Candreva and Insigne, except for a few players who were unable to play due to injury, and the starting point of this game was exactly the same as when they lost 3-0 away to Spain, and the crazy 4-2-4 positioning in attack was too different. When the team was about to face two key battles of life and death in the near future, they did not rehearse the lineup well, and once again stubbornly played a fight for their lives, which made everyone cry out that they couldn't understand.

After kick-off, it was the desperate home side who found their groove in attack first, with striker Sadiku and 22-year-old winger Grezda forcing Gianluigi Buffon to make a brilliant save. Italy's first threatening attack came belatedly in the 21st minute, when they launched a long ball from the back and Empoli's centre-back Vesely cleared the ball but turned what was supposed to be an unwarranted attack into an unexpected opportunity. Immobile was clever on the left side of the six-yard penalty area, and before the opposing central defender rushed back to make up for it, he fired a powerful left-footed shot, but because the angle was too small, Atala goalkeeper Berisha, who had already blocked the near corner, blocked the ball with his body, and the Azzurri relieved some of the previous passive situation.

In the following game, the two sides reached a temporary equilibrium, attacking and defending each other, but they were a certain distance away from the goal. It wasn't until near the end of the half-time that the visitors suddenly made a move that made Albania's goalmouth tense for a while. First, in the 40th minute, the Italians played a counter-attack, Eder burst into the box from the right and forced a cross, the ball appeared to hit Veseli's arm, but the referee did not say anything in the face of complaints from the visiting players. Judging from the slow motion given by the broadcast agency, it is really hard to say whether the ball was deliberately handballed, so it is understandable that no penalty was awarded.

Two minutes later, the Azzurri took advantage of the large number of people in front of the team to finally play a multi-player combination, and finally Insigne found a long-range opportunity from around 267 meters outside the box, but his attempt failed to produce a normal level and went over the crossbar. And the last minute of the first half of regular time. Leonardo Bonucci unleashed his usual long-form pass from central midfield at club time and the ball went over the entire Albanian defence, and when Immobile cut forward into the box from the right, it was a blast that missed the near post and missed the goal.

As a result, the score of 0-0 was brought back to their respective dressing rooms by both sides, and in general the two teams were evenly matched, and Ventura's tactical arrangement, although occasionally effective, was not obvious. He put out this line-up to strengthen the attack, but the rest of the time, except for the last few minutes, the overall functioning of the team was a mess, which has become a norm since Conte's departure and his takeover. However, with Verratti often injured and Monterivo no longer in his prime, playmakers like Benassi and Baseli of Torino still unable to secure a call-up to the national team, and it is easier to tell who should bear the blame.

Just a minute after the restart, Albania threatened again when midfielder Roche, who played for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, swooped in from outside the box with a powerful shot and a good angle. Thankfully, Buffon was in excellent form today, and he kept his concentration throughout, slamming to keep the ball out and keep his side in the back of the net. However, this sneak attack also seemed to arouse the fighting spirit of the Italian players, or they finally unified their minds at half-time, and then suppressed the opponent very strongly, and gradually increased the chances of attacking the goal.

However, their attacking methods were very single, except for the 56th minute, when Immobile took advantage of the cooperation errors of several defenders of the opposing team to get a chance to shoot from a tight angle on the right side of the small penalty area (and also played high), the rest of the routine was only two in-cut shots from the wing and a long-range shot from the middle. In the first 25 minutes of the second half, Candreva twice, Insigne twice, Eder three times, plus Parolo once, the Italian player made a total of eight shots, but none of them posed much threat, and the three shots from the woodwork could not be kicked out of angle, all of which were saved by Berisha, who played steadily.

At this time, people basically saw the negative impact that Pelle and Belotti could not play on the Azzurri team. The team did not have a strong fulcrum in the opponent's penalty area to squeeze or even destroy the opponent's defensive formation, and the crosses from the two wings were almost impossible to grab. When the ball can't create any threat in the penalty area, it is forced to have no choice but to let both sides cut inside, but there is no other change in this routine, and the power is greatly reduced after being focused on defense by Albania, but it has to continue to be used forcibly, which is really embarrassing for the coach.

At this time, Li Mudi thought to himself: Ventura is also an old fox who has been up and down in Italian football for 35 years, although the team he coaches is not the top, and there is no honor in hand, but there will be some tricks in his head. But in fact, he is indeed a model of running to the black, and after seeing that the offensive on the side did not receive the desired effect, he immediately strengthened it with substitutions. Zampacosta, who had the better ability to assist, replaced the starting right-back Darmian, and the three players stockpiled up on the right side to attack the home team's backline, which was a really strange tactic.

However, his luck is still good, in the 73rd minute, left-back Spinazzola stepped forward and continued to shake outside the sideline of the big penalty area to create a chance to kick, his cross arc is high but not fast, it doesn't look like a threat, but it can't stand the opponent's big gift! Veteran left-back Agri, who didn't have much distraction in the middle, made a low-level mistake that gave the unmarked Candreva a great opportunity to get a straight volley. Faced with a powerful burst of less than five meters away, Berisha had no way to turn the tide this time, and the score finally changed.

However, because they didn't care too much about the outcome of the game, Albania still followed the normal approach to defensive counterattacks in the following period, and also played two more exciting attacks, which caused some trouble for the visiting team's defense. The Italians, on the other hand, were not satisfied with a one-goal win and still wanted to extend their lead, but they were never able to penetrate the solid defence, as Mobile wasted a good one-on-one goal against the goalkeeper in the second minute of stoppage time. In the end, the result was set at 0-1, and although the Italians won the victory, it also showed the world that their personnel were irrational and their attacking routine was lacking, which is not good news for the play-offs to start in a month's time.

When the results of the other matches in the group were all in, the final ranking of Group G was officially released, and Spain entered the World Cup finals for the eleventh consecutive time with an impressive record of 9 wins and 1 draw; Italy has 23 points with 7 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, and has the opportunity to participate in the play-offs with the second best group runner-up; The teams followed were Albania with 13 points, Israel with 12 points, Macedonia with 11 points and Liechtenstein with no points. This ranking is basically the same as what most people expected after the draw ceremony, but no one could have imagined that the gap between the top two in the group would be so obvious, and everyone was expecting a dragon fight.

By the end of the second day, eight teams will be given a second chance: Switzerland, currently ranked 11th in the world (shown in parentheses at the end of the rankings), Italy (15), Croatia (18), Denmark (19), Northern Ireland (23), Sweden (25), Ireland (26) and Greece (47th). They will be drawn on the afternoon of 17 October at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, for a two-legged home-and-away matchup, with the four winners securing a direct ticket to next year's World Cup in Russia.

It is important to note that the top four teams with a higher world ranking will be seeded and will not meet each other in the play-offs. However, in addition to the Greek team, which is in a national economic crisis and cannot extricate itself, the strength of the other three unseeded teams cannot be underestimated, and no matter who is drawn, Italy needs to show all their skills, but this has become a big problem during Ventura's tenure, and I don't know how to solve it.

Fortunately, at this time, the Italian football people also knew that they had to unite as one and not bring more negative impact on the national team, so those media did not criticize the team's performance after the game, but were all voices of encouragement. During this period, all the celebrities showed up one after another to cheer everyone up, and the famous argument began to spread on the Internet, that is, the more difficult it is to obtain the right to qualify, the better the results in the main competition. Many have even begun to tout that perhaps the Azzurri will bring a big surprise to the world in Russia next year, as Germany did in 2006.

However, in Li Mudi's heart, he still feels that with Ventura, it will be difficult for the Italian national team to have high combat effectiveness, and it will be difficult to gain anything from letting such a coach who is not enough and extremely stubborn lead the team. But he really didn't expect that this was an overestimate......