After losing to North Macedonia in the European Cup play-offs, the Italian national team missed the World Cup for two consecutive times. For the Italian fans, this is a real disaster, and what scares them even more is that such a disaster has been encountered twice in a row.
Historical traditions
In fact, when the Italian national team cheers for victory, disaster always follows. Italy won the 1982 World Cup, but subsequently failed to qualify for Euro 1984, and the 1986 World Cup also stopped in the first round of knockouts.
After winning the 2006 World Cup, Italy reached the quarter-finals at Euro 2008 and won just one of its four matches. In the 2010 World Cup, Italy did not win one of the three group matches, and the opponents were only Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia.
The real problem with Italian football is that once the championship is won, the manager, the players will lose their focus and hunger.
In the group stage of this World Preliminary Round, Italy won all three matches and did not concede a single goal. However, after winning the European Championship, Italy achieved only 1 win and 4 draws in 5 World Cups, which led to them eventually being overtaken by Switzerland.
Perhaps, for the Italian national team, winning the European Championship is just an exception. Two missed the World Cup, and were eliminated by Sweden and North Macedonia in the play-offs respectively, really reflect their level.
Talent withers
Once a team is out, the manager tends to be reduced to a sinner. However, coaching the Italian national team is not so easy, for the simple reason that since 2006, the number of Italian players playing in Serie A has decreased year by year.
In the 2005–06 season, serie A appearances reached 10,456 and Italian players made 7,216 appearances, accounting for 69%. By this season, the total number of appearances reached 9,067, and the Italian players only made 3,257 appearances, accounting for only 36%, which is a new low in the past 17 seasons.
In the top clubs, this phenomenon is even more serious. In the eight traditional strong teams of Inter, Juve, Milan, Napoli, Roma, Fiorentina, Lazio and Atalanta, Italian players played only 30%, compared with 28% and 26% in the previous two seasons.
The number of appearances of Italian players playing for the Serie A giants has led to Mancini having to select players from clubs such as Sassuolo, Cagliari and Turin.
Unlike Donadoni, Prandelli, Conte and Ventura, who have been accused of trusting only veterans, Mancini recruited and reused a group of new people, and the average age dropped from 28 years and 334 days in 2018 to 27 years and 57 days in 2022, almost 2 years. However, the results are the same.
What really worries the Italian Football Federation is that the problem will get worse. In Serie B and youth leagues, the number of Italian players is also decreasing, which means that the selection of the future Italian national team coach will be narrower.
The front is weak
Italy's exit had a certain contingent factor, with Italy having 32 shots on goal against North Macedonia, while the opponent had only 4 shots on goal. North Macedonia's expected goal for the campaign was only 0.17, but it won with a deadlock before the final.
However, Italy's exit is also inevitable, because the weakness of the front has always plagued them. Against Macedonia, Italy had only 5 of its 32 shots on target, and its opponents had 2 of 4 shots on target.
Since the Quarter-Final Eight of the 2021 European Championship against Belgium, Italy have scored less than one goal in eight of the next 10 matches, with one of their opponents still Lithuania.
In these 8 matches, Italy has scored only 5 goals, and the players who scored goals are Bonucci, Chiesa (2 goals), Di Lorenzo, Pellegrini, of which Chieza is the only striker to score. Against North Macedonia, Bonucci, Chiesa and Di Lorenzo were absent collectively, and Pellegrini only came off the bench.
Italian media revealed that after the exit, the president of the Italian Football Association, Gravina, has confirmed that Mancini will continue to coach and asked him to completely update the team, with the goal of returning to the World Cup after 4 years.
Having experienced the joy of winning the title and the humiliation of being eliminated in less than a year, was Mancini able to accomplish that goal?