{"id":1981,"date":"2025-11-16T23:22:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T23:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2025-11-16T23:22:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T23:22:02","slug":"norway-qualifies-for-2026-world-cup-and-sends-italy-to-dreaded-playoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"Norway Qualifies for 2026 World Cup and Sends Italy To Dreaded Playoff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Erling Haaland scored twice as Norway confirmed qualification with a 4-1 win against four-time world champion Italy, which was consigned to the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Having missed out on the 2018 and 2022 editions of the World Cup, Italy\u2019s place is in doubt again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Only victory by nine goals or more would have been enough to see the Italians overtake Norway at the top of Group I.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>That was never likely against a Norway team that had a perfect record in qualifying going into Sunday\u2019s game in Milan and ended its campaign in style.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Despite going behind to Francesco Pio Esposito\u2019s early goal, four goals in the second half \u2014 Haaland scored in the 78th and 79th \u2014 turned the game around for Norway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9>Now Italy faces the 16-team UEFA playoffs, which will determine the last four European nations to advance to the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-b1ca39d9><i>Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Erling Haaland scored twice as Norway confirmed qualification with a 4-1 win against four-time world champion Italy, which was consigned to the playoffs. Having missed out on the 2018 and 2022 editions of the World Cup, Italy\u2019s place is in doubt again. Only victory by nine goals or more would have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}