Italy are by no means the only major football nation to miss two World Cups in a row, nor are they the first European Champions to flop on the world stage before and after that triumph.
The Azzurri lost the play-off semi-final 1-0 to North Macedonia on Thursday, failing to even reach the final against Portugal.
It means they will instead play Turkey in a friendly on Tuesday evening, an event that feels like rubbing salt in the wounds for both nations.
Italy had only ever previously missed the World Cup in 1958 and 2018, so failing to qualify for two tournaments in a row is unheard of for this country.
It’s not entirely unusual, though, as France did it in 1970 and 1974, then again in 1990 and 1994.
Spain flopped in 1954 and 1958, as well as in 1970 and 1974.
England won the World Cup in 1966, but failed to qualify in 1974 and 1978.
Italy aren’t even the first European Champions to miss out on the World Cups around their victory.
Czechoslovakia didn’t qualify for the 1974 World Cup, won the Euros in 1976 and failed again in 1978.
Denmark missed out on Italia ’90, won EURO 1992 and didn’t make it to USA ’94.
Greece too won EURO 2004 between failed qualifying campaigns for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
No doubt FIFA will do as they did after England’s failures in 1974 and 1978; increase the numbers of places in the finals.
Just a few differences…no disrespect to these nations but Italy is not on the same level as Czech, Denmark or Greece.
We are bigger and better than that. It should not have happened and what happened was unacceptable esp after what happened in 2017.
@jomo
good job on trying to spread misinformation…
FIFA will not do this in response to Italy missing out.
2026 is already going up to 48 teams and it was agreed upon in 2017 ( before the first italian mishap)
The difference is Italy are part of footballing royalty and their DNA makes it worse as they should always qualify for tournaments and be competitive in them.
Nico is correct. This shouldn’t have occurred. And we cannot be compared to other countries. I won’t be watching the WC, btw.