Roberto Baggio calls it ‘madness’ that Italy don’t get automatic World Cup qualification as reigning champions of Europe and the failure to reach Qatar created ‘psychological’ after-effects.
The Divine Ponytail was speaking at an event at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport this evening when he was asked about the fact Italy won’t be at the tournament in November and December.
“Italy won the European Championship, I think it’s shameful, it’s madness that they are not given an automatic berth to the World Cup for that,” said Baggio.
They finished runners-up to Switzerland in their World Cup qualifying group, then lost the play-off against North Macedonia to a last-gasp goal after dominating the match.
“Anyone can lose one game against anyone else on a bad day, but these lads deserve some sort of reward for what they achieved, don’t they? If I had been in that squad, I would’ve struggled to accept it.”
Italy have certainly gone off the boil since last summer, looking fatigued and to a degree sated in the Nations League Final Four and the World Cup qualifiers.
That culminated in last night’s 3-0 defeat to Copa America winners Argentina in the Finalissima at Wembley Stadium.
“I think Italy suffered psychological after-effects from the World Cup elimination. You can see it’s a psychological issue,” argued Baggio.
“We saw last night, you just cannot compare the calm and confidence of the Argentina players to our current state of mind.
“Roberto Mancini did something extraordinary, he must be respected and allowed to continue working the way he has done. We have young talents who are not given room to play in Serie A and that is a well-known problem.”
There are still very, very faint chances Italy could be given a berth to the 2022 World Cup if Ecuador are excluded for falsifying the paperwork of one of their players during the qualifiers.
In theory, Italy would be next in line as the highest team in the FIFA World Ranking not to have qualified, but it’s more likely a different South American side would be promoted instead.
Among the new generation of Azzurri there’s Nicolò Zaniolo, although the Roma starlet has been held back by repeated injury problems.
“I hope he can recover fully, as unfortunately the injuries have really penalised him a great deal. The goal he scored in the Conference League Final can only boost his confidence and let him look to the future with less pressure.”