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TALLINN: Italy’s hopes of at least making the World Cup qualifying playoffs were given a boost with a 3-1 win away to Estonia on Saturday thanks to goals from Moise Kean, Mateo Retegui and Francesco Pio Esposito.
Italy failed to qualify for the last two World Cups, twice missing out in the playoffs, and the dreaded backdoor route now looks their most likely chance after Norway’s 5-0 hammering of Israel in Group I earlier on Saturday.
The Norwegians are top on 18 points from six games. Italy have 12 points with a game in hand on their rivals and are three points clear of Israel. Estonia remain fourth on three points.
The group winners qualify directly for the World Cup with the runners-up going into the playoffs.
Italy raced into a fourth minute lead when Federico Dimarco played the ball into the feet of Kean who twisted and turned his way into the area before unleashing a shot into the far corner.
That was Kean’s fourth goal in three games for Italy, but the striker was forced off through injury shortly afterwards, replaced by Esposito whose only previous international appearance also came off the bench against Estonia in September.
Retegui won a penalty when fouled by Marten Kuusk but failed to convert as Karl Hein tipped his effort onto the post.
“The important thing is to create — missing goals and penalties can happen,” Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso told RAI Sport. “The boys are eager and continuing on the right path.”
The Italian forward made up for that miss when doubling the visitors’ lead seven minutes before the break. Riccardo Orsolini played a pass back from the byline and Retegui smashed the ball past Hein from just outside the six-yard box.

ESPOSITO OFF THE MARK
The second half was a tamer affair until Leonardo Spinazzola’s ball into the area was met first time by Esposito to net his first international goal in the 74th minute.
“I’m very emotional, these are things you can’t explain or fully grasp in the moment,” Esposito told Sky.
“I still need to process it, but I’m incredibly happy, everything happened so fast.”
Two minutes later and after Italy’s Gianluigi Donnarumma had been an onlooker for much of the game, the visiting keeper spilled Markus Soomets’ cross at the feet of substitute Rauno Sappinen for the easiest of tap-ins.
Italy host Israel on Tuesday where a win would cement second spot and, while they can still mathematically catch Norway on points, the Norwegians’ far superior goal difference means a playoff spot likely beckons for Gattuso’s side.
“There are many positive things, we have to follow our own path,” Gattuso told Sky.
“We’re not thinking about Norway or Israel. We know what we have to do and we hold on to the good we’ve done.”

PARIS: A new restaurant opened its doors in Paris on Saturday, founded by a Palestinian from Gaza and a Franco-Israeli, aiming to promote reconciliation through food.
The Palestinian, French and Israeli flags fly from the ceiling of ��ٲ���������, the Taste of Peace,” where the first customers packed in to eat hummus, falafel or Gazan salad.
Radjaa Aboudagga and his team have been toiling since 6:00 am to create the Middle Eastern dishes for families and friends of all ages seated on mats or at tables.
“Everything is handmade,” said Aboudagga, a Franco-Palestinian originally from the Gaza Strip, in the restaurant’s crowded kitchen, as he prepares “manakish,” a flatbread topped with cheese, ground beef and herbs.
The restaurant, which will be open four nights a week until June next year, was conceived with Franco-Israeli Edgar Laloum, in partnership with the “Nous reconcilier” (We Reconcile) group.
“I’m happy about this day because it comes at a time when there is finally hope there too,” said Laloum as Aboudagga looked on, referring to the expected return of Israeli hostages and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Laloum, who lived for 30 years in Jerusalem, said the restaurant’s menu is made of “dishes that Israelis and Palestinians eat in the same way.”
“The two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, have the same customs, the same dreams, the same tears and the same sadness,” added Aboudagga.
“We share the same land, we all have to live together on it,” he added, welcoming the decision of the French government and others to recognize a state of Palestine.

- Joie de vivre -

The restaurant is housed at the Consulat Voltaire, an old electricity sub-station turned cultural center, in the 11th district of Paris near the place de la Bastille.
One customer, Raphael, who did not want to give his last name, told AFP that the three flags were “symbolic.”
“It’s very beautiful and I was explaining to my son that, in the end, we can all live together.”
Another diner, Henri Poulain, 57, said he saw it as a sign of “reconciliation” and “a link between the French Republic on the one hand” and “these two states, one of which has yet to be born.”
Even if the war were to resume in the Gaza Strip, he said he was convinced “it wouldn’t weaken a place like this.”
Psychosociologist Joelle Bordet, 72, said she thought the word “reconciliation” was “too strong.”
“Just being together in the same space, when you’re effectively enemies, is extraordinary,” she said. “I can’t do it today in my network with Russians and Ukrainians.”
Next to Bordet was Nour-Eddine Skiker, head of the “Jalons pour la paix” association, some of whose volunteers came with a local youth council group to lend a hand.
“In this very small space, there is room for everyone,” he said.
One of the young volunteers, Mboreha Ahamed, 23, added: “Being here under these three flags is super symbolic... over a meal where we think of other things.”
At about 2:00 pm, the queue to order mezze was long.
Readings of poems in Hebrew, Arabic and French, discussion groups and concerts were all planned, all, in the words of the restaurant’s founders, in the spirit of “joie de vivre” — the meaning of ��ٲ���������” in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories.