The Italian Football Federation have confirmed Northern Ireland’s 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final against Italy will take place at the New Balance Arena in Bergamo on March 26.

Also known as the Stadio di Bergamo, the venue is home to Serie A outfit Atalanta and has a capacity of 23,439.

The city of Bergamo is located approximately 25 miles north-east of Milan and the Irish FA have confirmed ticket information “will follow in due course” for the crucial showdown.

Northern Ireland set up a semi-final against the former world champions after topping their UEFA Nations League group last year with the winner to face either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina on March 31 for a spot at the major tournament.

placeholder image — A general view of the New Balance Arena which will host Northern Ireland's 2026 World Cup play-off semi-final against Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

If Northern Ireland progress, they’ll also be on the road for the decider as they look to book a place at their first World Cup in 40 years.

The draw for next year’s showpiece event in Canada, Mexico and USA is being staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC on Friday with the four European play-off winners all placed in Pot Four.

While acknowledging they’ve been handed a tough assignment, Michael O’Neill has called for his Northern Ireland players to believe.

“It’s a tough draw,” he said last month. “We always felt it would be.

“You have to take what you get in this situation. We always knew we were going to be away from home (in the semi-final).

“Italy will be as tough as we can get, but ultimately we have to believe we can go there and get an amazing result. It would be one of the biggest results in our history if we can do that. We have to believe as a young team that we are capable of doing that.

“We gave a good account of ourselves in our World Cup qualifying campaign away from home, albeit the result in Germany went away from us in the last 20 minutes and the game in Slovakia we lost via a corner in injury time.

“I think the team has developed over the six qualifying games and a big thing for us will be to be as strong as possible come March.

“We obviously dealt with injuries and some suspensions in the six games that we had and there’s no doubt that affected us, but hopefully we will be as close to full strength as possible in March.”