Marco Verratti admits Italy's loss to North Macedonia is a 'disaster'

Marco Verratti was distraught after Italy missed out on a second successive World Cup by losing 1-0 at home to North Macedonia in their playoff semi-final.

Verratti thought Italy 'dominated the game' and said his team-mates 'gave everything', but admitted it wasn't enough to qualify for the final of the play-offs.

Verratti described the result as a 'disaster' and said he was struggling to 'understand' how they went from 'hero to zero' so quickly following their triumph at Euro 2020.  

Speaking after the game, Verratti told RAI Sport: 'It is difficult to understand. I think we dominated this match and we should've won. We had to win.'

He went on to add: 'It is difficult to understand. I think we dominated this match and we should've won. We had to win.  

'Looking around the locker room, we had the players to challenge for the tournament itself, yet here we are talking about a disaster. It's so tough to go from hero to zero.

'We experienced special times together and I will always be proud of my teammates. This is football, you need to score goals. We didn't manage it, but we gave everything we had. It wasn't enough.

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'We have to ask ourselves questions now. There's some bad luck, but you also need to make your own luck.'

The result comes as a blow to Italy - who failed to qualify for the World Cup four years ago, their first failure to reach football's global showpiece tournament since 1958. 

Verratti was a member of the squad that failed to qualify for the high-profile tournament in 2018.  

The European Champions were eager to repeat history. However, Aleksandar Trajkovski had other plans for the Italians as he picked up the loose ball in the 92nd minute, drove