For four months, Italy has known what stands between them and a first World Cup since 2014.
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Northern Ireland awaits in the playoff semi-final, with the winners facing either Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina for a place in Group B alongside co-hosts Canada, Switzerland and Qatar.
For the four-time winners it seems almost unthinkable that they will fall short.
However, the same thing was said four years ago against North Macedonia, and before that also against Sweden.
For Northern Ireland and Michael O’Neill, it is a chance to achieve something special as they chase their first World Cup in 40 years.
As a player, Gattuso did not sleep before important matches. It’s similar as a manager, but now he has the help of sleeping pills from his doctor.
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Otherwise, he says, “at 4:30 or 5:00 I wake up and my eyes are wide open like a bat.”
Gattuso carries the weight of a nation on his shoulders. It is a great responsibility.
The former AC Milan midfielder took over to replace Luciano Spalletti in June and has won five of his six matches.
“I have been training for several years, but without a doubt this match is the most important match of my coaching career so far,” Gattuso said.
“I’m prepared and, believe me, I don’t think about things going bad, I think positively.
“I want to think big and we will certainly compete and see how things go.”
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He has the admiration of O’Neill, who in 2012 was given a similar task: trying to lift a Northern Ireland team from a low point.
Four years later they qualified for the Euro Cup.
“The pressure of managing Italy is very different to the pressure of managing Northern Ireland,” O’Neill said.
“I admire him for coming in and taking the job when he did, after the previous coach left after two games and then having to try to turn around a bad result in Italy’s first game in Norway.
“I have great admiration for what he did as a player and, obviously, also for the work he has done as a coach.”
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The roar of thunder
During Gattuso’s press conference, Gianluigi Buffon sat quietly on the side of the room and watched his fellow World Cup winner speak.
Buffon, now Italy’s technical director, played a key role in the appointment of Gattuso to replace Spalletti in June, and is also fully aware of the pressure on the Italians’ shoulders.
By contrast, by the time O’Neill arrived for his press conference, a storm had reached Bergamo and the blazing sun, which the thousands of traveling fans had been enjoying, was replaced by lightning and thunder, which was so loud that it could be heard in the press room when O’Neill was speaking.
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If Thursday’s game is as dramatic as the changing weather, then we’ll all be in luck.
O’Neill says his young team will play without fear.
“I have a lot of faith in this group of players and it will be a young team that will take the field.
“I think the benefits that come with youth is the lack of fear. We have everything to win in the game, there’s no doubt about that.
“In the last two years they have really grown and played a lot of international football.
“It will be a huge test for us, but it is a test that I think we are prepared to face.”
“Tears came to my eyes”
Marcello Lippi praised Gennaro Gattuso in an interview in an Italian media (Getty Images)
There is a lot at stake for Italy and emotion will play an important role in Bergamo.
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La Gazzetta dello Sport, one of Italy’s largest newspapers, published an interview with 2006 World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi, who said Gattuso reminded him of himself as a coach.
That, for Gattuso, “made me cry.”
Northern Ireland’s fight and desire was a constant theme in Gattuso’s press conference, and it is clear he wants his team to match that on Thursday.
As he said, “we are masters of our own destiny.”
“First of all, it depends on us.
“We have to go out on the field and if we show in the stadium that we have money and that we are not afraid, then we will not be able to ask anyone for anything.
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“We know very well what we have to do. We need to make sure we are prepared for this game, both physically and mentally.”
O’Neill knows his team believes they can achieve something special.
“I think we have to realize that we have done incredibly well to be in this position. There are many nations bigger than us that are not at this point in the competition.
“Being a smaller nation and with the expectation that falls on the nation of origin, we come to the game a little more relaxed and with a little more freedom in ourselves.
“I’m incredibly proud of the players. They know what’s at stake.”