4 min readUpdated: Apr 2, 2026 08:19 PM IST
The World Cup qualification from hell for Italy, has turned into a never ending nightmare. Jokes have gotten old, coaches have seemed helpless and scapegoating Alessandro Bastoni just won’t cut it. Even talk of ‘structural changes’ seems jaded and four years old, as Bosnia and Herzegovina sent Gli Azzurri out of the third straight World Cup appearance after the 1-4 loss in penalty shootout in the European playoffs on Tuesday, after playing most of the match with 10 men.
Voices emanating from Italy were filled with shock and disappointment.
Head coach Gennaro Gattuso
The head coach and World Cup winner from 2006, reckoned the hurt was too much.
“I’m not interested at all in talking about my future today. It hurts, it really hurts. More than hurting me, it hurts to see this group which has really given everything in these months and I think we deserved to get back what we put in and I honestly think it’s too reductive and too immature to be talking about my future today. Here we should be talking about Italy, about the national team shirt, that it’s yet another blow even though this time we didn’t deserve it. We deserved more and that’s why my future doesn’t matter.”
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Leonardo Spinazzola, Italy defender
The defender, 33 now, says he’s gone a dozen years without playing at the World Cup, and was devastated at the last chance.
“We still don’t believe it, that we’re out and that it happened in this manner. It’s upsetting for everyone. For us, for our families, and for all the kids who have never seen Italy at a World Cup. It’s a nightmare, it’s true. I’ve been with the national team for nine years and I still haven’t played in a World Cup. It’s bad for everyone, including us, for the group we were. Even today, with 10… We could have done much better, it’s a huge disappointment. Football is a series of episodes. We had three chances to score, but now there’s no point in talking. It’s a huge disappointment. I hate to see the boys crying. I hope the curse ends now and they can play in another World Cup.”
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Matteo Renzi, Italy’s former prime minister
“It’s a sign that Italian soccer has failed.
Soccer isn’t just entertainment in our country; it’s part of our culture and national identity. It’s sentiment that explains why the fallout from this third failure might sound so dramatic to those looking in from the outside.”
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Gabrielle Marcotti, author and presenter to ESPN UK
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I’d say, “This isn’t funny anymore,” but I cracked that one last time. And I used the one about “letting somebody else have a chance to win a World Cup, since we have four of them at home — as many as England, Spain and France combined — and we don’t want to be greedy,” back in 2018.
I am sure about what you don’t need after Tuesday’s defeat on penalties against Bosnia and Herzegovina. You don’t need massive think pieces about the decline of Italian football and calls for root-and-branch reviews. No, it’s not because Serie A today isn’t as good as it was in the 1990s that Italy failed to qualify. Serie A was no better — it was arguably worse — when Italy reached the final of the Euros in 2012 and 2021, winning the latter.
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Horror headlines:
Via Tutti (Everyone out) by Tuttosport,
Tutti a Casa (Everyone at home) by Gazzetta dello Sport
In Corriere della Sera: Bosnia “humiliated us.”
In La Repubblica adds: “20 years of solitude lived in the absence of a plan.” With the equally scathing Maurizio Crosetti, in the same newspaper, adding that Italy’s “habit of mediocrity is our evil.”
In La Stampa: “Disaster”
