Charlie Christie – How have Italy gone from champs to chumps?
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After a week of fascinating international football we are left with a total of 29 nations confirmed as participants in this year’s World Cup Finals which are due to kick off in Qatar on November 21.
The European play-offs were tense affairs with the biggest shock being Italy’s home loss to North Macedonia. The reverberations from the defeat were felt throughout the nation and sees the current European champions missing out on consecutive World Cup Finals after also failing to qualify in 2018.
Having been on the Amalfi coast during their World Cup final defeat in the USA in 1994 and in Tuscany in 2006 when they achieved their fourth World Cup success, I have witnessed first hand the incredible passion in Italy for football from both young and old and I have had a soft spot for ‘The Azzurri’ ever since.
The Italian press were scathing in their criticism of the team and, having being hugely impressed by the Italians during last year’s European Championship success, I too find it difficult to pinpoint where things have gone wrong.
They dominated almost every qualifying group match both home and away and were undefeated. But the failure to turn any of their four draws into wins cost them dearly as they were pipped to automatic qualification by Switzerland.
Indeed the statistics after that North Macedonian defeat were astounding. But two thirds possession, 32 efforts on goal and 16 corners alone do not win football matches and their inability to hit the back of the net again came back to haunt them and left many involved in Italian football looking deeper into potential failings in their system.
The lack of importance given to the national team by the Serie A authorities was debated.
The Italian Football Federation had asked for the league matches prior to the play-offs to be postponed but were told it was not possible.
The development, promotion and game time of home grown players throughout the top league was questioned and I was intrigued to learn that Serie A sides have, on average, only two to three academy graduates in their first team squads with incredibly limited game time having being achieved by those players in recent seasons.
This is a problem not just in Italy and is regarded by many as having a potential long term detrimental effect on a nation’s abilities. It will be interesting to see if the Italian football authorities change their thinking going forward.
The fact that it was as far back as 2010 when we last saw a Serie A side win a European trophy is perhaps an indication of the regression in their game at club level.
That leaves three Qatar finals places still up for grabs with the remaining play-off games scheduled to be played in June.
Obviously the one occupying Scottish minds is our home match against Ukraine with a Gareth Bale inspired Wales awaiting the winners.
But, as Steve Clarke correctly stated this week, sometimes football becomes somewhat irrelevant and we can only hope that the despicable actions by
Vladimir Putin’s Russia can see some sort of resolution in favour of Ukraine sooner rather than later.
One thing’s for certain if the match does go ahead; the Ukrainians will receive an unbelievable and well deserved warm and raucous welcome at a jam packed Hampden Park, here’s hoping!
