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eroon 0:1 as the away team in the first leg of their playoff. The cele- brations were short-lived though, with Cameroon taking revenge 1:2 in the return leg and securing its own spot at the World Cup thanks to the away goal rule. Mahrez will be 35 in 2026, so this might well have been his last chance to per- form at the world’s biggest festi- val of football. One major star that won’t be shining at the World Cup is Italy’s entire national team. The “Azzurri” surprised everyone with last year’s European Championship triumph, but the squad fell apart soon after taking the title. With an “easy does it” style, the Italians lost top spot in their group and had to take the playoff route, where they were de- feated by North Macedonia. That translates to the World Cup be- ing deprived of the likes of Nicolò Barella (€70 million), Federico Chie- sa (€65 million), Alessandro Bastoni (€60 million), Gianluigi Donnarum- ma (€50 million) and Sandro Tonali (€50 million), but also the legend- ary Giorgio Chiellini, who misses out on making his Azzurri swan- song on the big stage. Qatar is also only a tourist desti- nation for Austria international Da- vid Alaba (€55 million). This Real Madrid player had incredible club season success, but fell short with his national team. Austria had its qualification struggles, but man- aged to secure a playoff berth, on- ly to come up against Wales, which brushed Austria aside and went on to book its World Cup place at the expense of Ukraine. The World Cup won’t feature the Côte d’Ivoire and thus top Ivorian Franck Kessié (€45 million), who transferred to Barcelona from Mi- lan as a free agent, or new Liver- pool fans’ favourite Luis Diaz (€45 million), whose Colombia ended its World Cup qualification campaign in a lowly sixth place. Still, what’s undoubtedly most important to us is that we’ll still get to watch Serbia, under the leader- ship of the legend of world foot- ball that is Dragan Stojković Piksi!
WAITING FOR THE WORLD CUP THERE ARE MANY FOOTBALL WIZARDS WE WON’T GET TO WATCH IN QATAR We will be denied the enjoyment of watching around a dozen big names of world football whose national teams simply weren’t good enough to secure their visas
WE’LL WATCH THE 32 TEAMS THAT HAVE BEEN sifted through sieve and mill to make it to the FI- FA World Cup competing in Qatar from 21 st November to 18 th Decem- ber. However, some of the world’s best footballers won’t be among them, due to their national teams having failed to qualify. The most prominent name we’ll miss at the World Cup is Norwegian Erling Haaland, whose signature re- cently cost Manchester City a small fortune. Haaland’s move from Borus- sia Dortmund to the English champi- ons is speculated to have cost around 150 million euros. And, even with all that money, City’s new striker won’t be able to be anything more than a spectator in Qatar. Norway finished as low as third in its qualification group, below the Netherlands and Turkey, though above Montenegro. That wasn’t enough to even secure a place in the playoffs. It’s worth re- calling that Haaland didn’t play in last year’s European Championship
either. That time it had been Serbia that eliminated Norway, only to itself fall at the last hurdle, to the Scots. Another equally big name is Egyp- tian demigod and Liverpool FC phar- aoh of football Mo Salah. Salah has an estimated price tag of 100 million euros, 50 million less than Haaland, but few players can match the Egyp- tian’s skill. We nonetheless won’t be watching him perform in Qatar ei- ther. The Senegal national team, led by Salah’s Liverpool teammate Sa- dio Mané, became Egypt’s football- ing nightmare. The Senegalese first defeated “the Pharaohs” in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, only for Salah to miss a decisive penalty in their World Cup qualification play- off encounter. We’ll stick with Africa, more pre- cisely Algeria, which we all expected to see competing in Qatar. The incredible Riyad Mahrez (estimated price tag of €40 million) scored five goals in lead- ing Algeria to the playoffs. And that wasn’t all. Algeria actually beat Cam-
108 | Fudbal » Football
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