🚀 Explore this must-read post from BBC Sport 📖
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Italy won the European Championship in 2021, but has not played in the World Cup finals since 2014, when it beat England but lost to Costa Rica and Uruguay and failed to advance beyond the group stage.
Their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign could not have gotten off to a worse start.
A narrow 3-0 loss in the opener to Norway, in which Manchester City’s Erling Haaland scored one of the goals, led to coach Luciano Spalletti publicly announcing his dismissal two days later, although he still took charge of the ensuing 2-0 home win over Moldova.
Since then, Italy have been playing catch-up, with the impeccable Norway winning their first seven qualifying matches, scoring 33 goals in the process, including 14 for Haaland.
Italy turned to Gennaro Gattuso, the combative former midfielder who helped Milan win the Champions League twice and secure Italy’s last World Cup title in 2006.
Despite coaching Milan and then winning the Coppa Italia with Napoli, a 23-day spell at Fiorentina saw him leave without taking charge of a game, before lasting just seven months at Valencia and five months at Marseille.
His last appointment was with Croatian club Hajduk Split, and many felt that taking over as Italy coach was a mistake.
“When I heard Gattuso was in line it seemed like evidence of the titanic collapse of Italy,” Italian soccer journalist Mina Razzocchi told the Europa League podcast.
“There were a lot of clips circulating on social media about the Italy team before they won the World Cup, and you are talking about Paolo Maldini, [Fabio] cannavaro, [Alessandro] Nesta, [Francesco] totti, [Alessandro] Del Piero was simply an embarrassment of riches.
“Now when you look at Italy over the last few seasons, even though they won the European Championship, there was just a downfall – but the one thing you can count on is that Italy created these great coaches. However, none of these great coaches have been called up or succeeded. Spalletti has not succeeded.”
Horncastle added: “The players were in a difficult situation after losing to Norway in June, and now the approach imposed on Italy by the Italian media is ‘You have to win all your remaining matches and you have to score lots and lots of goals.’”
“Italy had a great coach in Luciano Spalletti, although for whatever reason it didn’t work out. Gattuso is a coach who is more famous for his press conferences than the football he plays on the pitch.”
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