Italy star Jorginho says he will be forever haunted by his two penalty misses against Switzerland which proved decisive in their World Cup qualification.
The misses saw the teams draw in November which meant Switzerland finished top of the group, giving them automatic qualification. Italy were put into play-offs as the second-highest in their group and they crashed out after shock defeat to North Macedonia on Thursday.
Italy are the first reigning Euros winners not to qualify for the World Cup since Greece in 2006.
“It hurts when I think about it, because I do still think about it and it will haunt me for the rest of my life,” the Chelsea midfielder told RAI Sport.
“Stepping up there twice and not being able to help your team and your country is something that I will carry with me forever, and it weighs on me. People say we need to lift our heads and carry on, but it’s tough.”
And when asked where the team went wrong, he responded: “It is hard to explain what happened.
“It hurts so much. I’ll be honest, I am still incredulous. I don’t think we lacked creativity, as we always dominated matches and created so many chances. Unfortunately, we were unable to finish them off.
“We played good football, we won the European Championship last summer, but unfortunately in the last few games we made small errors and were unable to recover from them. They made the difference.”
