Everything is lost in this world without reference points. While we were thinking about our inexhaustible reservoir of mockery concerning the Italian national team, our best enemy, the team that we love to hate from father to son and from mother to daughter, what was our surprise to discover a little tear of sadness on our cheek, Tuesday evening, after the new fiasco of the Blue team. Unable to beat Bosnia in the 2026 World Cup play-off final, the Italians will therefore miss their third World Cup in a row next summer. A heresy, not to say a shame, in a country where we still speak with our fingers but where we play less and less well with our feet.
When the federation snubbed Roberto Baggio and his report
“Italy is now the laughing stock of international football. Missing three World Cups in a row is simply unforgivable. We used to have world-class players but today the players are very average,” admitted the legend Alessandro Del Piero, this genius ball handler, a species on the verge of extinction on the other side of the Alps now.
“The problem does not date from today, things have been like this for around fifteen years and the problem is known,” breathes Emanuele Gamba, journalist and follower of the Nazionale for La Reppublica. It’s a problem with football culture in Italy. We simply don’t give ourselves the means to get there. There is not enough money invested by the federation and by the clubs for the training of players, we do not have a federal center like you with Clairefontaine. »
If only someone – let’s just say, another legend of Italian football like Roberto Baggio – had done a titanic job to highlight the shortcomings of Italian football and propose solutions to get out of the prevailing slump… Oh but wait, he did it! The problem is that no one listened to him. Hired in 2010 by the Italian Federation (the FIGC) after the premature elimination of Italy during the South African World Cup, a precursor to much more serious disasters to come, the handsome Roberto took his mission very seriously and produced a 900-page report full of common sense and good ideas.
“No one listened to him…”
There was talk of placing emphasis on the training of young players, favoring technical work to the detriment of tactical brainwashing and an obsession with immediate results, but also of reforming the training of educators by encouraging them to leave the classrooms to go smell the grass and roll the ball. Baggio also recommended creating a national Masia, a sort of Clairefontaine with “calcio e pepe” sauce, and completely reviewing federal scouting policy.
“The report remained in a drawer. Nobody listened to him, it’s sad but it’s reality, laments Emanuele Gamba. It must be said that in Italy, we do not have a medium or long term federal project, we only live day by day. And then I think it was also a matter of political politics. Listening to Baggio meant making profound changes in methods, but also in people, and that, for those in power, was out of the question. In the Federation, what the leaders want is to stay in power. The rest… “
Disgusted to see that his efforts were in vain, the man with the gold chain and the most beautiful mullet cut of the 90s decided to “draw the consequences” of this affront by walking out the door himself, leaving the thinking heads of the federation in their selfish and short-termist mess. As a result, nothing has changed in a country where we still swear by the 3-5-2 system, abandoned by the rest of the world, and where we fear having eaten a hallucinogenic mushroom as soon as a player makes a blind pass after dribbling past three players.
“There is surely a quality problem, we cannot deny it,” agrees our colleague from La Republica. We actually have a big problem from a technical point of view. There is hardly a single good ball player in Italy anymore. In youth teams, the emphasis is still placed on tactics. If we look at the best Italian team in recent years, Inter, you don’t have a single Italian player who knows how to dribble, who feels the game, it’s terrible. »
Federal revolution in sight, willingly or by force
Maintained in power in 2022 despite the non-qualification of the Squadra Azzurra for the World Cup in Qatar, when his predecessors had the decency to resign after also experiencing such disappointments, Gabriele Gavrina, the president of the FIGC, should have difficulty getting through the drops a second time.
On Wednesday, while he calmly announced the upcoming holding of a simple federal council to “take stock”, he had the displeasure of hearing the Italian sports minister, Andrea Abodi, calling for his head. “It is obvious to everyone that Italian football must be refounded,” he wrote in a press release. And this process must go through a renewal within the management of the FIGC. »
Hoping that the next president will have the presence of mind to rummage through the drawers of the Fed when he takes up residence, as long as Roberto Baggio’s report is still safely tucked away there. You never know, he might discover two or three not too stupid ideas there. And the sooner the better because, given where Italian football is starting from, four years of hard work will not be too much in view of qualifying for the 2030 World Cup. Although, by then, the World Cup will perhaps have increased to 96 teams.
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