ROME (AP) — Italy is coming off a record performance at the Winter Olympics.
Kimi Antonelli just became the second youngest driver at 19 to win a Formula One race and is considered The Next Big Thing in auto racing.
The Azzurri rugby squad beat England for the first time in the Six Nations.
Jannik Sinner is back to winning ways on the tennis court.
Italy’s men and women are the world champions in volleyball.
Even the country’s unheralded baseball and cricket teams have broken barriers recently.
Yet there’s one big team from Italy that continues to struggle. The once-dominant men’s soccer team is at risk of failing to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.
The four-time World Cup champion needs to beat Northern Ireland in the playoffs next Thursday in Bergamo and then either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina away to avoid going at least 16 years without even playing a match at soccer’s biggest event.
“Sports are about cycles but this one in soccer has gone on for too long,” Italy Sports Minister Andrea Abodi says.
An entire generation — basically anyone under 15 — has no memory of the last time Italy played in the World Cup: An elimination loss to Uruguay in 2014 in Brazil remembered for Luis Suarez’s bite of Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder.
“For generations of Italians, the World Cup was the time when the country came together and waved our flag,” Abodi tells La Stampa. “Our national spirit now extends beyond soccer but it would still be nice to share those emotions with younger fans.”
Doomed qualifying campaign
Italy’s qualifying campaign was doomed in the opening match by a 3-0 loss at Erling Haaland’s Norway — leading to coach Luciano Spalletti being replaced by Gennaro Gattuso.
The Azzurri then went on a six-match winning streak before losing again to Norway in November to finish second in their group and end up in the playoffs again — the stage where Italy was eliminated by Sweden before the 2018 World Cup and by North Macedonia in 2022.
Northern Ireland troubled Italy before
Ranked 13th, Italy will be a heavy favorite against No. 69 Northern Ireland.
But the Azzurri should be reminded that their last meeting, a 0-0 draw in Belfast in 2021, plunged the recently crowned European champion into the playoffs for the 2022 World Cup.
Italy has won all seven of its home games against Northern Ireland and the opponent’s captain, Liverpool right back Conor Bradley, is out injured.
Northern Ireland coach Michael O’Neill was also appointed Blackburn manager last month in an arrangement that sees him splitting duties.
20 years since a knockout match
Italy’s World Cup struggles go back all the way to 2010 and 2014, having failed to advance from its group on both occasions.
The Azzurri’s last World Cup knockout match was when they won the title in 2006 by beating France in a penalty shootout — a match remembered more for Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi.
So it’s no accident that members of the 2006 squad are involved in trying to revive the Azzurri’s fortunes — starting with Gattuso.
Former goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who holds the record with 176 appearances for Italy, is the national team’s delegation chief and had a role in selecting Gattuso.
Also, former fullback Gianluca Zambrotta and former midfielder Simone Perrotta are working in the Italian federation’s youth development program.
Dinners in lieu of training camp
Even with Gattuso and Buffon making their cases, the national team was not able to convince soccer authorities to set up a training camp in the four months since Italy last played.
Instead, Gattuso and Buffon embarked on a tour up and down Italy — plus trips to London, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — to share dinners with the squad’s players and maintain team spirit.
Struggles go beyond national team
Serie A has gone from being a destination for the world’s best players in the 1990s and early 2000s to a competition that now attracts castoffs past their prime from other leagues.
No Italian club has won the Champions League since Inter Milan in 2010.
Italy won the European Championship under Roberto Mancini in 2021 but it was also under Mancini that the Azzurri failed to qualify for the following year’s World Cup.
Mancini left the team in chaos by resigning to take on a lucrative job as Saudi Arabia coach in 2023.
Spalletti had little time to prepare Italy for Euro 2024 and the Azzurri were eliminated by Switzerland in the round of 16.
Too much attention to tactics
With the national team’s struggles in mind, federation president Gabriele Gravina this week unveiled a new youth development program he says is aimed at “overcoming a sort of extreme tacticalism that really worries me.”
Gravina suggests Italian clubs and coaches need to move away from defensive tactics that prioritize “winning at all costs.”
Perhaps the soccer team could learn some lessons from Italy’s successes in other sports, too.
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