Tonali's breakfast-table dream pays off for childhood idol Gattuso in Italy's World Cup playoff win

ROME (AP) — Sandro Tonali scoring the decisive goal for Gennaro Gattuso’s beleaguered Italy in the World Cup playoffs was a dream that began at the midfielder's breakfast table as a kid.

Every morning Tonali used to drink from a teacup featuring images of Gattuso on it.

“That was my routine for many years. Then one day the cup broke and I begged my mother to glue it back together,” Tonali said. “When it was glued back together I had to leave it on a shelf. One day I’ll bring it to (Gattuso) and have him sign it.”

Gattuso should be more than happy to sign it now — after Tonali scored one goal and set up another in the 2-0 win over Northern Ireland in the European playoff semifinals on Thursday.

Playing in Gattuso’s former central midfield position and wearing his idol’s No. 8, Tonali broke the deadlock with a half-volley early in the second half and then set up another goal for Moise Kean.

“It was the most important goal of my career,” Tonali said.

Italy was eliminated by Sweden and North Macedonia, respectively, in qualifying playoffs for the last two World Cups, and was unable to reach the knockout rounds at the 2010 and 2014 tournaments. The four-time world champion has not been a threat at soccer’s biggest event since Gattuso was the beating heart of the 2006 team that claimed the Azzurri’s last title.

“I was six but I remember it all very clearly,” Tonali told UEFA.com in October. “It’s probably the only thing I remember from when I was a kid.”

Besides that Gattuso teacup.

Tonali became an AC Milan fan to support Gattuso and then played for his favorite team just after Gattuso’s tenure as Milan coach. So he couldn’t have been happier when Gattuso replaced the fired Luciano Spalletti for the Italy job last June.

“I was happy to have him back in my life,” Tonali said, “and to have him as a coach for the first time.”

Tonali missed the 2024 European Championship while serving a 10-month ban for betting on clubs that he played for.

But his life has taken a positive turn recently after getting married last year and having a son, Leonardo, born in January.

Now, with Newcastle struggling in the Premier League, Tonali has been linked to transfer speculation and possible destinations like Manchester United and Juventus.

Italy next visits Bosnia and Herzegovina in the playoff finals on Tuesday needing another victory to reach the World Cup in North America.

“We have to win,” Tonali said. “We have no other choices.”

Added fellow midfielder Manuel Locatelli: “We haven’t achieved anything yet.”

Bosnia advanced after 40-year-old Edin Dzeko leveled the score and 18-year-old Kerim Alajbegovic converted the winning spot kick in a 4-2 penalty shootout win at Wales following a 1-1 draw.

“It’s going to be a tough atmosphere against experienced players,” Gattuso said. “It will be another very tough match."

If Italy does qualify for the World Cup, it will be in Group B with Canada, Qatar and Switzerland.

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Italy's Moise Kean, left, and teammate Francesco Pio Esposito, right, celebrate after Kean scored his side's second goal during the World Cup qualifying play-off soccer match between Italy and Northern Ireland, in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso celebrates after the World Cup qualifying play-off soccer match between Italy and Northern Ireland, in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Sandro Tonali celebrates after scoring his side's first goal during the World Cup qualifying play-off soccer match between Italy and Northern Ireland, in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso celebrates after the World Cup qualifying play-off soccer match between Italy and Northern Ireland, in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Federico Dimarco, right, celebrates with teammate Sandro Tonali who scored his side's first goal during the World Cup qualifying play-off soccer match between Italy and Northern Ireland, in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

DOLLOW, Somalia (AP) — The sound of a crying child is a sign of hope in a crowded displacement camp in southern Somalia — the most malnourished children are too weak to even cry.

For the mothers in the Ladan camp in the town of Dollow, survival is the only thing on their minds — not the Iran war or how UNICEF gets the supplies to keep the place running. The displaced here have fled the drought that has ravaged swaths of this Horn of Africa nation after four failed rain seasons.

Their crops and livestock devastated, they show up at the camp, often with nothing but their children.

Aid workers at Ladan say the raging war in the Middle East — more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) away — has made their work harder, disrupting supplies and sending fuel costs soaring.

UNICEF says it has $15.7 million worth of lifesaving supplies — including therapeutic food, vaccines, and mosquito nets — in transit or being prepared for delivery to Somalia. But those shipments now are uncertain.

Transport costs could rise by 30% to 60%, and even double on some routes, while delays caused by rerouting and backlog become more likely, the U.N. agency says.

During a visit to Dollow on Wednesday, Catherine Russell, UNICEF's executive director, said the Iran war has been a “shock to the system” for the agency's work on the ground in Somalia.

"It means that we can’t get supplies in as easily, and that fuel costs are really high,” she said. “It’s another problem that we have to try to deal with, and it means that more and more children will suffer.”

At the same time, more than 400 health and nutrition facilities have closed over the past year across Somalia, due mainly to U.S. funding cuts, leaving many communities without access to support. Aid agencies warn more closures could follow.

All those issues have compounded the situation in Laden, where hunger threatens especially the youngest.

“What we’re seeing is that children are really on the edge already," Russell said.

In Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, the government warned last month that nearly 6.5 million people — out of the population of more than 20 million — face severe hunger as the drought worsens and conflict and global aid cuts intensify the country’s crisis.

The humanitarian needs are just the tip of the iceberg as the Somali government grapples with its long-running war against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militant group, fighting to reclaim territory from the extremists.

The latest data from a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global hunger monitoring group, estimates that 1.84 million children under the age of 5 in Somalia are expected to suffer acute malnutrition in 2026.

In Ladan, spread across the town’s dusty outskirts, rows of makeshift shelters stretch under the harsh sun, fragile structures of plastic sheets and torn fabric held together by sticks and thorn branches. The camp is home to about 4,500 households.

“We just want our children to survive," said Shamso Nur Hussein, a 20-year-old widow with three children. She fled their village in the Bakool region after losing all her farm animals.

Her cooking hearth at the camp — three stones and ash — was cold, with no sign of a recent fire.

“Since morning we have only had black tea,” she told The Associated Press at the camp.

At the hospital in Dollow, mothers sat shoulder to shoulder on narrow beds holding frail children, some too weak to cry while others let out soft whimpers.

Liban Roble, a nutrition program coordinator, said the hospital used to see mainly "moderate cases.”

“Now we are receiving children in extremely critical condition — severely malnourished, weak, and in some cases almost skeletal,” he said.

Roble said the hospital has only supplies to treat the malnourished "until mid-April or the end of April.”

“If new stock doesn’t arrive, more children will deteriorate and potentially die,” he said.

At Ladan's nutrition center, health workers weighed children and dispensed a peanut-based paste, squeezing it into the children’s mouths.

It's a lifeline, a means to prevent rapid decline of the malnourished children, nurse Abdimajid Adan Hussein said.

“Their weakened bodies make them vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea and other illnesses,” Hussein said.

Community leaders say support is already falling short.

“We used to receive assistance from humanitarian agencies, but that stopped in September 2025,” said Abdifatah Mohamed Osman, Ladan's deputy chairman. “Now the little support we get is mainly therapeutic food for malnourished children.”

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Sandra Lattouf, UNICEF Representative in Somalia, smiles at a mother of twin malnourished children at Dolow Referral Hospital in southern Somalia, Wednesday, March 25, 2026.(AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell (center) listens to a woman holding her malnourished child at Dolow Referral Hospital in southern Somalia after being affected by drought, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)

Isho Isak sits with her malnourished child at Dolow Referral Hospital in southern Somalia after being affected by drought, Wednesday, March 25, 2026 (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)

A Somali mother holds her malnourished child as she waits to receive therapeutic food at a UNICEF-funded nutrition center in Dolow, Somalia, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)

Nurto Madey, a mother displaced by drought, holds her daughter inside her makeshift hut at Ladan internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Dolow, southern Somalia, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)