\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n After finishing second in their World Cup qualifying group, Riccardo Calafiori’s Italy are forced into the play-offs for a third successive time.<\/p>\n The four-time winners have suffered heartbreak in this route in each of the last two qualifying campaigns, losing to Sweden and North Macedonia. Calafiori’s Italy came second to Martin Odegaard’s Norway in qualifying, and as a result, took on Northern Ireland in the play-off semi-final in Bergamo.<\/p>\n Cala played the full 90 minutes as Italy won 2-0. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina’s penalty victory over Wales in Cardiff, Italy will now travel to Zenica to face the Bosnians for a spot at the finals.<\/p>\n If Italy do reach the finals, they will match up with co-hosts Canada, the 2022 hosts Qatar and Switzerland, who topped Group B in qualifying.<\/p>\n Viktor Gyokeres’ Sweden secured passage to the European playoffs thanks to their excellent performances in the UEFA Nations League, rather than their World Cup qualifying campaign.<\/p>\n Viktor’s nine goals in the 24\/25 Nations League spearheaded Sweden to promotion and a place in the World Cup play-offs, where they took on Ukraine in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n Our forward continued to show why he’s the main man for his nation, netting a hat-trick in Valencia to help Sweden prevail 3-1.<\/p>\n As a result, Sweden will now host Poland in Solna after the Poles came from behind to beat Albania in their semi-final. The pair faced off in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers where Poland triumphed 2-0, will there be revenge for Viktor and Sweden?<\/p>\n Should Sweden prevail, they’ll slot into Group F along with the Netherlands, Japan and Tunisia. <\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was late heartbreak for Denmark in their final qualifier last November. A winner-takes-all clash against Scotland in Glasgow saw the Scots triumph 4-2, with ex-Gunner Kieran Tierney netting late on to send his nation to the finals for the first time since 1998.<\/p>\n As a result, the Danes took on North Macedonia in the play-off semi-finals in Copenhagen and confidently dispatched their opponents.<\/p>\n There was even time for Christian to notch up just his second ever Denmark goal, sending home his bullet header in a 4-0 win.<\/p>\n Denmark will now go to Prague to face Czechi Republic after they came from 2-0 down knock out Ireland on penalties.<\/p>\n Christian’s reward, should he and Danes make it, will be to slot into Group A alongside co-hosts Mexico, 2010 hosts South Africa and 2002 co-hosts, South Korea.<\/p>\n While Christian has 39 international caps to his name, Cristhian Mosquera could be receiving his first for the Spanish senior national team.<\/p>\n Mosquera’s impressive debut season in N5 has seen him receive a first call-up to Luis de la Fuente’s side, joining David Raya and Martin Zubimendi in the squad. Cristhian has made 39 appearances from under-15s all the way up to under-21s, as well as being part of the Spain under-23 side that won gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.<\/p>\n Spain have two internationals coming up this break against Serbia and Egypt as they shape their World Cup squad, giving Cristhian two opportunities to make his debut for La Roja.<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s new beginnings for Cristhian but a return for two of our stars as Kai Havertz and Ben White were called up to Germany and England respectively.<\/p>\n Kai suffered two injuries in 2025 which kept him out of all of Germany’s internationals, but after making his return for us in 2026, he’s now back in the squad.<\/p>\n His last appearance for Germany came back in November 2024 in a 1-1 draw against Hungary. In the match before that, he scored and provided two assists in a 7-0 win over Bosnia. Germany are playing Switzerland and Ghana this month as Kai will be hoping to add to his 22 international goals so far.<\/p>\n Also returning to the national team set up is Ben. Our full-back replaced Ebere Eze in Thomas Tuchel’s side for his first call-up since 2022. Ben has made four appearances for the Three Lions and was part of the England set-up for Euro 2020. <\/p>\n He’ll be joining Noni Madueke, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka as Tuchel’s side face Uruguay and Japan in their final matches before the summer.<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The March international break is the final stoppage of the 2025\/26 season as we close in on the summer World Cup in Mexico, Canada and the USA. Our players have … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Which Gunners are going on international duty? <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nCALA ONE WIN FROM WORLD CUP<\/h2>\n
HAT-TRICK VIK Out for revenge<\/h2>\n
Superb Gyokeres hat-trick fires Sweden to win <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nNORGAARD HEADING FOR FINALS?<\/h2>\n
MOSQUERA’S MOMENT<\/h2>\n
Mosquera’s first impressions of life in London <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nCOMEBACKS <\/h2>\n
White replaces Eze in England squad for friendlies <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n