Saturday 21 / December / 2024
Rome: The Italian national football team's upset at the hands of North Macedonia left the team out of the second consecutive World Cup, an outcome called a "disaster" by the country's leading sports daily on Friday.
Italy, has won the World Cup in 1934, 1938, 1982, and 2006, and this is just the third time in 21 attempts the team has failed to at least qualify for the global football event.
A 1-0 loss in Sicily on Thursday to 67th-ranked North Macedonia stunned the Italian media and football fans.
"An Italian disaster!" The sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport exclaimed in Friday's edition.
Corriere della Sera, the country's most read newspaper, reported "Italy is crying." Another leading sports publication Corriere dello Sport called the outcome a "national delusion" while Football-Italia, a fan site, called the game "a nightmare."
"I'm very sad, there's no doubt," Franco Ficetola, a 30-year-old football fan living in Ladispoli, just north of Rome, told Xinhua. "Even if Italy qualifies for the next tournament in 2026 it means we will have gone 12 years between World Cup appearances."
"This is just a bad year, all around," said Mario Ricci, a 61-year-old municipal worker in Rome. "Between the pandemic, wars, inflation, and the economy, we could have some good news."
The elimination of the national team stands out not only because it was the second consecutive time the team failed to qualify for the sport's most prestigious event, but because those two World Cup tournaments - in Russia in 2018 and in Qatar later this year - are bookends to an otherwise successful stint for Italian sports.
Last year, the Italian national football team won the European Championship. The team had been undefeated in an international record 37 matches before losing to Spain last October.
Italian athletes also shone at the Tokyo Summer Olympics last year, and had a higher-than-expected performance at this year's Winter Olympics in Beijing.
"We have gone from low to high, and to low again," said Annalisa Maggioli, a 37-year-old housewife. "It was heartbreaking to watch the players because they worked very hard and failed."
Now, the future of manager Roberto Mancini, who was hailed as a national hero after winning the European Championship just eight months ago, is cast in doubt. The Italian media speculated that 2006 World Cup winning captain Fabio Cannavaro is the leading candidate to replace him.
Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), said Friday he would not fire Mancini. But there is widespread speculation that the 57-year-old coach could step down.
Ficetola said he hopes Mancini will stay on. "We were unlucky against [North] Macedonia," he said. "Some people say Italy needs to overhaul the whole system but I don't think that's right. We're a good team. We just need to keep working."
