Italy’s potential play-off final opponents arguing over Steeve Cooper & Tahirovic row

Tensions are hotting up ahead of the World Cup play-offs, as Italy’s potential final opponents, Wales and Bosnia and Herzegovina, continue to clash over an incident involving Brondby head coach Steeve Cooper and midfielder Benjamin Tahirovic. 

Why are Italy’s potential play-off opponents, Wales and Bosnia, arguing?

Italy are due to host Northern Ireland in Bergamo for the World Cup play-off semi-final on Thursday evening. The winner of that tie will go on to face either Wales or Bosnia away from home in the play-off final, which will be a one-legged decider for a spot at the final tournament. 

While the final preparations are being put in place ahead of Thursday’s semi-finals, the Bosnian federation have raised an issue with Brondby’s Welsh head coach, Cooper, who has been accused of intentionally dropping one of his own midfielders, Tahirovic, in order to throw him off his rhythm ahead of the Wales vs. Bosnia meeting in Cardiff. 

Tahirovic was a starter for Brondby for most of the first half of the 2025-26 campaign, but has only collected 13 minutes of action over his side’s last four matches approaching the play-offs. 

Bosnia head coach Sergej Barbarez has thrown fuel onto the fire with his depiction of the situations: “Tahirovic has told me things that border on the unbelievable, relating to the nationality of his coach” he said (via TMW). 

“He wished him good luck for everything, but not for the national team. He was told that everything would go back to normal after the break.” 

Brondby’s press officer Soren Hanghoj has since clarified that Tahirovic was dropped on disciplinary reasons, and that the decision to take action against him was made by the club and not solely by the head coach, Cooper. 

According to TMW, Tahirovic himself has been in contact with Cooper and has explained that his statements have been ‘misunderstood’.