Article by Daniel Scorpie – Published Monday, November 17, 2025, 7:56 p.m. / Updated Monday, November 17, 2025, 8:01 p.m.
Emiliano Martinez (33 years old), the goalkeeper of the Argentine national team, commented on the imbalance between continents in the number of qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup compared to the total number of participants in the preliminaries. After the Italian Gennaro Gattuso complained that South America has an advantage, the Aston Villa player brought him a strange argument, related to the quality of the pitches!
The Italy coach is looking for alibis after the shameful failure against Norway (0-3) at the “San Siro”, he apologized to the Azzurri supporters for the performance on Sunday night, as a result of which he reached the play-offs, and he found himself rebelling against the qualification system at the World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
“I have no regrets about the past games. Wins bring wins and we have to stay focused on that. Let's look at the qualification group like the South American one, where the top six teams qualify and the seventh goes to play in a play-off against the qualified teams from Oceania.
Rino Gattuso: “It annoys us a bit and makes us realize how complicated our road to the World Cup is!”
It annoys us a bit and makes us realize how complicated our path is. The World Championship qualification system must be changed!“, thundered Gennaro Gattuso.
Gennaro Gattuso, the Italian coach, lost his first match, 1-4 against Norway in Milan / Photo: Imago
We apologize to the fans for the four goals conceded. It's a tough result. It's a shame, because we had a very good first half. Then the second half was below average.
And that is our biggest regret. The game changed when they immediately shot on goal, in the first seconds of the second half, and we «fell» more and more. We gave the Norwegians too much space
– Gennaro Gattusothe Italian coach, after the failure with Norway (1-4)
The statement of the Italian selector did not remain without an echo. Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez responded directly to DSports, highlighting the differences in environment between the two competitions.
“In Europe, they always play on perfect, wet pitches… They don't know what South America is like, they don't know what's here. There are other complex things that they don't see in Europe.” said the Argentinian goalkeeper, without naming Gattuso on the subject and preached, thus rejecting the criticism of the format favorable to the South Americans.
