Emmanuel LANGELLIER, Media365: published on Thursday March 31, 2022 at 5:24 p.m.
If Mbappé, Messi, Ronaldo or Neymar will be present at the next World Cup, other big names have missed the boat and will be absent in Qatar.
From November 21 to December 18, the 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar. All the qualifiers are now almost known. Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, Karim Benzema, Kevin de Bruyne, Manuel Neuer, Sadio Mané, Harry Kane or Luka Modric will be there, barring injury or a big mishap by then. On the other hand, like every four years, big names in world football will be absent from the big global meeting.
Without Verratti’s Italy, Donnarumma and Chiesa
Some took the door from the qualifications, others during the play-offs or because they evolve within a minor nation of the round ball. For the second time in a row, Italy, reigning European champions who came out to everyone’s surprise in the play-off semi-final at home in Palermo by North Macedonia (0-1), will not be represented in the Qatar at the end of the year. Marco Verratti will therefore not participate in the World Cup like his partners Gianluigi Donnarumma, Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci, Jorginho, Federico Chiesa or Nicolo Barella. Evolving in Italy, at AC Milan, the Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic will not be present either. The selection of the 40-year-old striker missed the mark against Poland in the final of the European play-off (0-2). Sweden’s top scorer, who returned to the national team last year, will not play a third World Cup after 2002 and 2006.
Pas d’Ibrahimovic, Haaland, Salah, Mahrez …
A great star of European football and a great name in African football, Mohamed Salah will not tread Qatari lawns either, his Egypt having suffered the law of Senegal in the play-off final. The current Premier League top scorer will be absent like Erling Haaland (15 goals in 17 games with Norway) whose nation finished 3rd in their group behind the Netherlands and Turkey, and Algerian Riyah Mahrez after the disappointment des Fennecs against Cameroon at the last second (1-2). In sight with FC Barcelona, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon) will also miss the high mass like Sébastien Haller, Nicolas Pépé and Franck Kessié (Ivory Coast) or Victor Osimhen (Nigeria). The South Americans James Rodriguez, top scorer of the 2010 World Cup with Colombia (6 goals) of Juan Cuadrado, the duo Alexis Sanchez-Arturo Vidal (Chile) will also be missing. Other notable absentees: David Alaba and Marcel Sabitzer (Austria), Jan Oblak (Slovenia), Hakan Calhanoglu and Cengiz Ünder (Turkey), Milan Skriniar (Slovakia) and Victor Lindelöf (Sweden).
