The four-time world champion fails again to qualify for the World Cup. And aside from the sporting disaster, something much more dramatic is happening. A very personal look at the Squadra Azzurra.
I was born and live here, but I have Italian roots and both nationalities. Just like my 18 year old son. For us, football has always been a part of our heritage. World Cups were the moments in which this felt very concrete – on the street, in front of the television, in conversations with family and friends. You didn’t have to explain anything. There was always a lot of suffering involved, but you could live with that as long as there were still a few happy endings on the pitch. In short: being an Italy fan, Tifoso, means: feeling.
Italy is not going to the World Cup. Again. And slowly this is no longer a big headline, but a situation. This used to be unthinkable. Italy was simply part of it – not always brilliant, not always beautiful, but present. A team that had its own logic in tournaments. And that’s exactly why they were taken seriously, including in Germany.
And now? Now you explain.
But now there’s only one thing left: explain why Italy isn’t there again. Why a four-time world champion does not manage to assert himself – with all due respect to Bosnia-Herzegovina – against an opponent who would not have been a real hurdle in the past. And you realize how thin these explanations sound: that a 20-year-old shouldn’t take the first penalty. That Gattuso is far too inexperienced as a coach. The fact that association president Gravina has been delaying urgently needed reforms in Italian football for years. All true, but all essentially irrelevant.
The real problem isn’t just missing a tournament. It’s getting used to it.
A generation is growing up that Italy has not seen at World Cups. For whom this “being there” is no longer a given, but rather a distant memory of others. The last time Italy scored a goal at a World Cup, my son was seven years old and Daniele de Rossi was still on the pitch. My son has had to watch Bryan Cristante’s mediocrity personified for years, whether in the national team or at Roma. That does something to us Italians.
That’s exactly what should make you think. Because what is currently happening in my generation – and I know this not only from myself, but also from cousins and friends in Italy – also threatens our children’s generation.
