Italian men's soccer team, have they lost all pride?

Ask AI · Why has the Italian men’s football team fallen from champions to missing the World Cup for three straight editions?

In the early hours of April 1 (Beijing time), the Italian men’s football team lost to Bosnia and Herzegovina on penalties in the World Cup qualifying play-offs, missing the World Cup finals for the third consecutive time.

It’s hard to imagine that this team, at the start of this century, once beat France in Germany’s Berlin to win their country’s fourth World Cup title—and yet the same fate has struck them three times.

In the play-offs for the Russia World Cup they lost to Sweden; in the play-offs for the Qatar World Cup they lost to North Macedonia; and this time they were again eliminated, this time by Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Even more ironic is that this edition of the US-Canada-Mexico World Cup expanded to 48 teams, and Europe’s allocations also increased—yet in the play-off draw Italy drew what was considered an “excellent draw,” but in the end, things still turned out the way they shouldn’t.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino also had something to say: Italy, we gave you the chance—you didn’t live up to it.

Pop champagne at halftime—an army commandment

In the early hours of March 27, the Italian men’s team beat Northern Ireland 2-0 in their first play-off match. They were now just one game away from the World Cup; their opponents would come from the winner between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Wales.

In the football world’s view, an aging and fragmented Bosnia and Herzegovina side was clearly not a match for Wales. But somehow the match took a dramatic turn: after full time, Bosnia and Herzegovina dragged Wales into a penalty shootout.

Because of the match timing, when Bosnia and Herzegovina took penalties against Wales, Italy had already beaten Northern Ireland. The whole team returned to the dressing room to watch the live broadcast of the game.

At the moment Bosnia and Herzegovina won the penalty shootout and advanced, Italian players in the dressing room erupted in loud celebration, as if their path to qualification had already been arranged by fate.

Italian players celebrate Bosnia’s qualification in the dressing room | Photo/video screenshot

The Italian players’ celebration wasn’t without reason. In this World Cup qualifying campaign, this Bosnia and Herzegovina men’s team didn’t have any particularly standout technical players. At age 40, veteran forward Edin Džeko was still the backbone of the team.

Bosnia and Herzegovina advanced to the play-offs by fighting all the way with a tough approach. To outsiders, compared with Wales—most of whose players play in the English Premier League—Bosnia and Herzegovina was clearly easier for Italy.

And just so happened: after Italy beat Northern Ireland, the broadcast signal from Italy’s domestic television network didn’t get cut off. Instead, it recorded the entire scene of Italian players in the dressing room celebrating Bosnia and Herzegovina’s qualification—and broadcast it in full.

Before long, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Football Association and the men’s team found out. They felt they had suffered a huge insult, and a large number of players expressed their dissatisfaction with Italy’s “offense” toward them to the media.

Even Italian fans joked on social media: back when we drew Portugal, Belgium, or Norway, we’d celebrate for it—only a few years later, and we’re already celebrating for facing Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As for Italy’s “pop champagne at halftime” behavior, Chinese football fans who are well versed in “metaphysics” could also sense something was off. After all, those matches where “a draw was enough to qualify” often ended with “they couldn’t draw and went home anyway.”

The match in the early hours of April 1 also proved this. Playing at home, Bosnia and Herzegovina kicked Italy—who already had one foot inside the World Cup—straight out the door.

“It’s you? You were happy the other day, weren’t you? Get out of here!”

How did it come to this?

Football may be full of randomness, but a well-established football powerhouse missing the main tournament for three straight editions can no longer be excused as “just bad luck.” Italy’s decline to this extent is indeed due to many subjective and objective factors.

From the objective side, compared with countries like Spain, Germany, France, and others that are more friendly toward African immigrants, Italy’s national policies are relatively conservative. As a result, many African immigrants and their descendants have moved away from living in Italy.

From the perspective of youth development, Italian young players have fewer opportunities to come into contact with Black players who possess exceptional physical gifts, and this is also reflected in player selection: compared with other European football powers, Italy has fewer Black players domestically.

Second is the decline in league appeal and pull. In the 1990s, Italy’s top flight, the Italian Football League (Serie A), was known as the “little World Cup.” Nearly all of the world’s best players gathered in Serie A—Brazil’s Ronaldo, Europe’s Zinedine Zidane, Africa’s Weah, and even Asia’s Hidetoshi Nakata.

As Italy’s domestic economy worsened and the match-fixing scandals took effect, the commercial value of Serie A kept falling. Over the past 20 years, the English Premier League has overtaken it to become the world’s top league—meaning Serie A has lost its ability to attract talent.

With a lack of homegrown talent and an inability to attract outsiders, a kind of vicious cycle naturally formed. It’s clear from the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina: the three starting players who play in the English Premier League—Tonali, Donnarumma, and Kallafiori—were simply not on the same level as the rest of the team.

Besides these objective factors, more of the reasons come from subjective tactical conservatism and arrogance. Once, the Italian men’s team was known for a very distinctive style. But over the previous 20 years, the team’s style had become extremely blurred.

During that process, they tried to learn Spain’s “tiki-taka,” and they also tried to emulate Klopp’s “high-tempo, take-the-game-to-them” approach. But in the end, they only learned it halfway—never truly mastered it, and ended up losing everything they did know.

Italian players receive a red card | Photo/video screenshot

It’s hard to imagine what it feels like for Maldini, watching from the TV, to see Italy’s center-back Bastoni carry out reckless fouls while leading by a goal, get sent off, and ultimately end up handing the team over to defeat.

Go wash up and sleep

Besides Italy at home, the Italian men’s team may also have one of the largest fan bases in China—these fans are almost all people born in the 1980s.

Because CCTV broadcast Serie A relatively early, watching Serie A became a window for a generation to access world football. AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus all took turns ruling the league, while Lazio, Fiorentina, Rome, and Parma frequently stirred things up. In the era of the “Seven Sisters,” nearly every match was packed with drama and watchability.

The names delivered to that generation of fans through commentary with extremely strong presence—those names became the “most familiar strangers” they knew.

In Serie A, one generation of fans came to know Roberto Baggio, Inzaghi, Maldini, Nesta, Albertini, Pierro, Totti… For Chinese fans without a home team, supporting Italy at the World Cup became a kind of shared emotional anchor.

When Baggio sent a penalty flying in the 1994 United States tournament, Chinese fans cried; when Italy were eliminated in the quarterfinals in 1998, Chinese fans felt regret; when Totti was sent off, and Italy were then eliminated by An Jeong-hwan’s winning goal, Chinese fans were furious.

2002 World Cup Korea’s last-second winner against Italy | Photo/Xinhua News Agency

Young fans may not remember that Italy’s previous World Cup goal before that came from Balotelli in 2014, and their previous knockout-stage goal could be traced back to Materazzi in the 2006 final.

In the blink of an eye, 20 years have passed. Those Chinese fans who used to stay up late watching games are already no longer able to keep doing it. For new fans, Serie A has also lost its appeal; excellent Italian players have gone one after another to the English Premier League. “Italy’s long history and tradition”—nowadays, it sounds more like an April Fool’s joke.

The Italian men’s team is also especially heartbroken for those supporters across the ocean, and they responded to fans’ love with real action: “Go wash up and sleep—we’re not going anymore.”

Reporter: Hu Kewei

Editor: Hu Yun