Well on the bright side, it might be the best thing for us at the moment. We really need a change in manager, and possibly higher positions as well.
Since World Cup 1958 which was the previous time Italy didn't qualify: Argentina missed 1 France missed 5 Spain missed 2 and 1958 England missed 3 Mexico missed 3
Hmm... Could this be the beginning of a new rivalry between Italy and Sweden? Are Italian fans going to hate Sweden now?
Nah. Sweden didn't even play that well, they were just lucky. However if we cannot score a goal against them in 120 min we do not deserve to be there. Its that simple. I am not mad at Sweden at all. What I am mad at is Ventura and Travecchio.
In all honesty, Italy didn't deserve to qualify. Right now, they are suffering from the same problem as the Netherlands....namely an inability to develop new talent. Neither country has a single superstar under the age of 30. So while it is shocking on the visceral level that both are missing out on the World Cup, it's not all that surprising when one looks at their current player pools. They simply lack the world-class playmakers and strikers needed to break down modern defenses. One of the match announcers compared the Italian lineup from 20 years ago (1998) with the players of today and noted that 20 years ago, they had Baggio, Del Piero, Vieri, Mancini, Zola, Ravanelli, Signori, Inzaghi, Chiesa, and Totti to choose from up front, half of whom couldn't even make the WC squad. Whereas today they don't have a single striker/attacker of that quality.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone hating Sweden. Unless ofcourse you're Danish. I think their anger will be directed at Ventura, and rightfully so.
Granted, so Italy didn't "deserve" to qualify because it failed to beat Spain and Sweden, a team which has also beaten France in August. Now I can tell you that more than half of the currently qualified teams wouldn't have done better. Of course, today's Italy is far to be the greatest team in its History, but the country is still among the best 32 nations and I would even dare to say the best 16. And the fact it had such a difficult path to qualify tells something about how poor the seeding system has been for European qualifiers. I'm not trying to find excuse to Italians here, no matter the sharpness of the road, a team with that History should be able to take it. This said, it doesn't chang the fact qualifying groups could have been more balanced.
Well here is the thing. I mean yes we are definitely still in the top 32 teams, but we are Italy and should not even be in this position in the first place. The whole approach vs Spain was horrible. We should have beaten them at home. Conte dominated Spain and he didn't even have the talent we had due to injuries. Failing to take 3 points at home vs Spain was inexcusable, and even more so the way we played that game. It was a year ago, but if you remember in the first half we were playing extremely scared and hardly had the ball. Is that acceptable for a team like Italy? Then vs Macedonia, we barely beat them although there was a few controversial decisions. The fact that we did not beat them comfortably is inexcusable. Also the draw vs Macedonia at home was beyond unacceptable. Then vs Spain in Spain. Spain probably were always going to be favorites to win that game, but did you watch the way we played? 3-0 is a huge loss, and the fact we weren't even pushing when we needed goals said something. And then Sweden. Yes they did beat France at home but still. France beat them in their own home. Also the fact we couldn't even score a single goal against them should say something. That has been a big issue with Ventura. The lack of goals scored was extremely horrendous. Liechtenstein results were frankly the only ones that were acceptable, and that was a rubbish team anyway. Probably should have scored more goals against them as well. I mean we are ITALY, we are not a team like Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, or Denmark. ITALY, the third greatest team in history after Brazil and Germany. Is what we have seen this qualifying campaign acceptable for a team like ITALY? No Not at all. To be more specific these are the results we should have gotten all group stage: Israel 0-2 Italy (1-3 was acceptable honestly) Italy 2-1 Spain Macedonia 0-2 Italy Liechtenstein 0-6 Italy Italy 2-0 Albania (that result was ok) Italy 6-0 Liechtenstein Spain 2-1 Italy (acceptable at the very least) Italy 3-0 Israel Italy 3-0 Macedonia Albania 0-1 Italy (result acceptable but the way we played was atrocious) Then if we were still in a playoff with Sweden this is what would be acceptable for Italy: Sweden 1-1 Italy Italy 2-0 Sweden Its not acceptable to fail to score any goals vs Sweden in two games, especially at home.
I am not that young, but I think this is the first World Cup in my lifetime without Italy. I have generally not been a big fan of Italy, but I will certainly miss them and don't think the World Cup sounds the same without them.
I agree on the point that Italy's failure shines a light on UEFA's qualifying process and seeding. It also highlights the benefits of playing the system too. The bigger countries ignore it, but the likes of Poland, Wales, Switzerland and Romania have all benefited in seeding through working the rankings in their favour, and not throwing away ranking points by playing friendlies against weaker countries, or by simply not playing them at all. Wales and Romania were both seeded for these qualifying groups. Neither made it through, but equally neither were placed into a group with Spain or France or Germany. Had Italy had a bit of forward planning in this regard (and they are far from alone in this) they could have avoided being drawn with Spain and the likelihood is they wouldn't have ended up in this mess. That said, having ended up in the playoffs they showed so little creativity that they were the deserved losers of this tie. Sweden had no need to attack in Milan. Italy did need to but as the game wore on they looked less and less likely to find a breakthrough.
Its obvious no other European team got such a bad draw. You could argue the Netherlands, but they were atrocious all round. BTW Sweden basically eliminated the two top teams missing from Europe.
Both the CAF and the UEFA system needs an overhaul. In both cases you can't really say that the best teams are going from the continent. Simply put the groups were lopsided. In Africa you had Nigeria's group and you had Tunisia's group, while in Europe there was Serbia, Poland or Belgium with easy groups, while UEFA titans went head to head (Spain vs Italy, France vs Holland) in others. At least in Europe the losers get a second chance. In Africa the draw is everything. At least in case of USA or Chile - their failure to qualify is in no way a result of the qualification system.
My guess is that as Africa doesn't organize any playoff, it's their best way to take advantage of available international dates.
I agree with almost all of this. But I wonder if we are putting to much emphasis on too far past performance and reputation when we say groups are unbalanced, especially in Europe. Holland could not even get a playoff spot for an expanded Euro and Italy went 3 and out in the last 2 world cups with 1 win, 2 draws, and 3 losses, not exactly the stuff of titans.
Concacaf, AFC, and of course Conembol have qualifying formats that virtually gaurantee the best teams to qualify. Yes I believe Chile is better than Peru and USA is better than Panama, but frankly those teams have only themselves to blame. As Zazah pointed out CAF and UEFA are the ones who get screwed due to the crappy FIFA rankings. Yes Italy are a shadow of themselves but if they were in Polands group they would likely be in the WC. How CAF could have a group like Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Zambia and then one with Tunisia, Guinea, DR Congo, Libya is astounding. It is possible that the worst team in Nigeria's group is better than Tunisia, in fact I would suggest just that. CAF needs to change their format to be somewhat like AFC's where you get the best 12 teams in 2 groups. For UEFA I cannot see a qualification reform, unless the UEFA nations league which should provide a more accurate reflection of rankings within UEFA than the FIFA rankings can somehow be utilized.
Maybe this is not the best idea, but you could have 5 groups of 11 teams, where each team in each group plays 20 matches (10 home and 10 away). The first two teams of each group and 3 best third place teams qualify for the World Cup, no UEFA playoffs.
Frankly I think some of the minnows in UEFA need to be cut out sooner than later, similar to what they do in CAF. This will reduce matchdays and cut out many of the meaningless matches that teams win 7-0. With the UNL the minnows cannot complain about getting a good amount of competative matches.
Poland beat Germany in last euro qualifiers and tied them in last euro so i don't know where you can be sure that Italia would finish ahead of them in a group. Wales, Ireland and Austria were not easy opponents for Serbia either. Denmark is struggling now against Ireland.
I doubt we would be in the WC if we were in Poland's group with Ventura as our manager. Poland is 10 times superior to Sweden. Lewandowski and Milik would humiliate Ventura.
35. Ireland Great time to be Scandinavian... not such a great time to be a country that starts with the letter "I" .... unless you're Iceland, which is a Scandinavian team that starts with an I ... but then again, even Iceland didn't win today, drew 1-1 with Qatar here... but nevertheless Republic of Ireland are out...