Injuries, play-offs and inconsistency: Italy must break cycles of misery

With the 4-1 defeat to Norway on Sunday evening, any remaining hope of Italy qualifying for next year’s World Cup automatically was extinguished.

Granted, the Azzurri went into the match at San Siro knowing that only a 9-0 victory would see them overturn the Scandinavian side’s goal difference to top the group. However, a strong second-half display allowed Norway to book their spot in next year’s competition, winning all eight of their games and scoring an impressive 37 goals.

For Italy, this confirms their third World Cup play-offs in a row, having been eliminated in their last two attempts and hoping to avoid the embarrassment of three consecutive editions missed.

The Azzurri are stuck in ever-repeating cycles: top players not performing, a lack of risks being taken by the coach, injuries hindering both veterans and young stars alike – all culminating in missing the World Cup.

As March approaches, Gennaro Gattuso and his Italy side will need to break free from this cycle, book their place in the competition proper and prove to the doubters that they are not yet dead and buried.

Italy’s best must replicate club form or face dropping

In the 4-1 loss to Norway, and indeed for much of the qualifying campaign, it was some of the country’s top players who were the biggest disappointment.

The likes of Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Alessandro Bastoni looked like cheap imitations of the players we have seen lead Napoli and Inter to success in recent years. Meanwhile, experienced midfielders Manuel Locatelli and Nicolo Barella have struggled to build any sort of momentum in the middle of the park.

When faced with dark times, and the clouds are indeed creeping over for the Azzurri, you should expect your best players to step up, not disappear into the shadows. Successive Italy coaches have consistently put faith in the nation’s ‘stars’ without the performances to back it up and if Gattuso wants to usher in a new era for the nation, it certainly couldn’t hurt to take some risks with his selection.

Italy have a wealth of players who are fighting hard for a call-up and even some youngsters have impressed domestically this season. However, in Gattuso’s XI against Norway, a match that was for all intents and purposes dead rubber, the coach started just one player under the age of 25 – Inter’s Francesco Pio Esposito.

Esposito found the back of the net, his first goal at San Siro, and was one of the team’s only starters who was not a complete flop. There are many more youngsters hungry to prove themselves for the Azzurri, as well as experienced players like Domenico Berardi and Riccardo Orsolini, who have been in excellent form this season but have not been given much national attention.

Some international coaches have found good fortune in selection based on form, encouraging a meritocratic national side with appearances based on form and current standing, not based on history, market value or perceived ‘worth’.

Rotting at the core: injuries & foreign reliance in Serie A costing Italy

Whilst the squad and coach, or coaches as problems have stemmed from way before Gattuso took over, must obviously take a lot of the blame for the team’s current predicament, there are also factors outside of the control of those leading and starring for the Azzurri.

Firstly, the country has faced an epidemic of serious tendon and ligament ruptures and tears that continue to hinder the development of rising talent.

For experienced players, it can take a lot of work to recover form after a serious injury – and in some cases, they never quite come back the same.

Leonardo Spinazzola was part of Italy’s Euro 2020 (or 2021) winning side, voted into the team of the tournament despite suffering an achilles rupture in the quarter-final win over Hungary. Indeed, he recovered and eventually was a reliable squad option for Antonio Conte’s Scudetto-winning Napoli side last season, but since the Euros glory, the wing-back has played just eight times in four years.

Similarly, whilst Gattuso insists that Federico Chiesa’s continued absence is as a result of the player’s own request, the winger is another talented footballer who has struggled to be the same after his ACL injury.

Meanwhile, more recently, Giorgio Scalvini and Giovanni Leoni, two extremely talented young defensive prospects who have had their development stalled, even halted, by serious injury. Scalvini suffered an ACL injury on the final day of the 2023-24 season, that kept him out of Euro 2024 and half of the following season. Every time he has returned since, the centre-back has faced further complications or different injuries, with the 21-year-old playing just 10 matches in Serie A since his injury.

Leoni, meanwhile, made a big money move in the summer from Parma to Premier League champions Liverpool. However, the 18-year-old suffered his own ACL tear in his debut in the Carabao Cup win over Southampton, and is set to miss the rest of the season.

Whilst the absences in the short-term are frustrating, the long-term ramifications are heartbreaking for the Azzurri. Horrific injuries suffered by the nation’s brightest prospects, especially at such a young age, can have after-effects for years to come and some of these rising stars are extinguished before they even have their moment to burn brightest.

Finally, some blame must be placed on Serie A and its clubs. Teams in Italy are turning more and more to foreign talent, instead of developing Italians, and this is causing further issues for the Azzurri. Some sides in Serie A will field nearly entire teams of players from abroad, which in itself is not a problem, but overall leads to less Italians being given opportunities to show what they can do.

Some may call for the league to create new regulations that limit the number of foreign players that can play in one team but this would appear bureaucratically impossible.

Big teams will stress that if Italian teams are to compete with Europe’s elite, they need to rely on talented players from abroad. However, this creates the Catch 22 in the sense that for Italy to benefit as a national team, the domestic league may have to be handicapped. And, ultimately, money talks – so there seems little possibility that the over-reliance on foreign players will be curtailed.