Mancini insists it is too early to talk about his Italy future

Roberto Mancini has lamented Italy's bad luck for their shock World Cup play-off defeat by North Macedonia, before remaining coy on his future.

The Azzurri were dumped out of the play-off semi-finals in Palermo on Thursday night after conceding a stoppage time winner courtesy of an Aleksandar Trajkovski strike.

Italy had largely dominated the encounter but only five of their 32 shots were on target and they will now miss the World Cup finals for the second tournament in succession.

When asked if he would continue in his role after failing to qualify, Mancini said: 'We will see. I think everyone is too disappointed right now to talk about the future.'

Italy had looked on course to qualify as group winners before stumbling to four draws in their last five games to be pipped to top spot by Switzerland.

Less than a year after defeating England to win the European Championship and complete a remarkable turnaround having failed to qualify for the previous World Cup in Russia, the Azzurri have now hit rock bottom again.

Mancini though insists it is bad luck rather than a lack of quality that has denied his side qualification for the finals in Qatar this winter. 

'Just as the Euros was the most wonderful experience of my life, this was the biggest disappointment' he said. 'We can say nothing, that is football, sometimes incredible things happen and it happened.

'We shouldn't have been here in the first place, but we did everything we could to win and it's hard to even talk about it.

'The victory at the Euros was absolutely deserved, we played great football. Then some of the fortune we had in that tournament turned into total and complete bad luck, as some unbelievable things happened from September onwards.

'We dominated the