Leonardo Bonucci slams World Cup "madness" in passionate rant after Italy dumped out

Leonardo Bonucci has slammed the World Cup qualifying system as “absurd” and claimed it is “madness” that Italy will not be in Qatar for the tournament later this year.

Italy were beaten 1-0 by North Macedonia in the play-off semi-final last week, just eight months on from becoming European champions. Roberto Mancini’s side will arguably be the biggest team missing from the 2022 World Cup after qualifying was completed on Tuesday night.

Portugal avoided Italy’s fate by beating North Macedonia 2-0 thanks to two goals from Bruno Fernandes in the play-off final in Porto. Meanwhile, Poland overcame Sweden 2-0 to qualify for the tournament from the other European play-off. Senegal beat Egypt in a penalty shoot-out marred by lasers from the crowd, while Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco and Cameroon also secured qualification from Africa.

Italy feel particularly hard done by from the process after finishing their eight-match Group C campaign unbeaten. But four draws proved costly for Mancini’s side, who finished second, two points behind Switzerland – who they drew both games against – and were therefore forced to go into the play-off system.

“We played it all in a one-off match, it’s an absurd system,” Bonucci said. “Unfortunately, that’s the way it went, but it’s a crazy decision. You have to play a single game in which anything can happen as we have seen.

“There are teams that qualified after losing four or five games, we are at home after losing only one in the 92nd minute. It is truly madness. Clearly the regulation is not an alibi or an excuse, we certainly had to do better. But from here we have to take inspiration to find the way back to where we were. There were many reflections. Certainly after Euro 2020 we got a