Undone by its own medicine: has this football giant self-destructed? | OneFootball

Is Italian football experiencing a bitter déjà vu today? In Bergamo, the national team faces a must-win World Cup qualifying playoff. Their opponent is heavy underdog Northern Ireland.

On paper, the situation looks favorable. At the same time, though, it also feels uncomfortably familiar. In 2017 against Sweden and in 2022 against North Macedonia, the Squadra Azzurra already stumbled in the playoffs against supposedly smaller opponents and ultimately missed out on the World Cup. A third straight knockout is now looming!

The scale of the crisis is enormous. Italy have not played a single match at a World Cup since 2014, and their last knockout match at the tournament dates all the way back to 2006. Back then, they beat France in the Berlin final and definitively became the team that crashed Germany’s “summer fairytale.” But since then, nothing.

"Sport is all about cycles, but this one in football has been going on far too long," Sports Minister Andrea Abodi lamented recently. In fact, millions of children have no memory of an Italian team playing in a World Cup match. For a country where football is still a religion, that is almost unimaginable.

"For generations, Italians came together during the World Cup and waved our flag," Abodi told the newspaper 'La Stampa'. But to create that kind of unity, the national team has simply not been good enough for quite some time.

Solid at the back, toothless up front

The fact that another embarrassment could be looming these days is anything but a coincidence; it is the result of structural problems. A look at the squad shows a clear imbalance: while the defense and central midfield remain internationally competitive, there is a massive lack of quality further forward. Players like Gianluigi Donnarumma, Alessandro Bastoni and Nicolò Barella belong to the international elite. But up front, Italy are average at best — if that!

No number illustrates the problem better than this one: the top Italian scorer in Serie A is Moise Kean, who has managed a meager eight goals for relegation-threatened Fiorentina. The country has not produced world-class attacking players in a long time. The last one who probably lived up to that standard was Mario Balotelli, whose admittedly very short peak came in the early 2010s. 

Other once highly rated names such as Federico Chiesa, Nicolò Zaniolo and Federico Bernardeschi have never been able to live up to expectations over the long term and did not even make the current squad.

Clinging to the past

The reasons for this historic crisis run deep and are closely tied to youth development. In Italy, a rather conservative understanding of football still prevails. Tactical discipline, defensive stability and risk avoidance are valued above bold ideas and creativity. In other words, the legendary catenaccio style lives on — it just no longer fits the times.

Federation president Gabriele Gravina has recognized the problem and is calling for a rethink. Italy must move away from reactive approaches in which "winning at any cost" takes center stage, he explained.

Daniele Verri comes to a similar conclusion: "They don't produce talent and they play slow football," the journalist said in an interview with the 'BBC' about Serie A clubs. Young players are too rarely given genuine opportunities, kept in youth teams for too long or shipped off to the middle of nowhere on loan at an early age. On top of that, fans and the media are less forgiving of their mistakes than in other countries. Coaching legend Fabio Capello put it bluntly: "Lamine Yamal would never have played in Italy."

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So while nations like Spain, England, France and, with some limitations, Germany consistently rely on young players, Italy remains stuck in old patterns both tactically and in terms of personnel. Those patterns brought the national team and club sides overwhelming success for decades, but they are now clearly outdated.

To put it bluntly: Italian football has overdosed on its own medicine. Even the surprising Euro 2021 title can hardly hide that.

Two wins away from the World Cup

Working through this systemic crisis will take years. The first real fruits of a new youth development concept are unlikely to be seen before Euro 2032 on home soil. Italy will co-host that tournament together with Turkey.

For now, however, it is about nothing less than sheer survival. Against Northern Ireland — and then ideally Wales or Bosnia — Gennaro Gattuso’s team must make sure that an entire generation of Italian children finally gets to watch a World Cup match featuring their football heroes. 

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

📸 Marco Luzzani - 2025 Getty Images