Italy lose on penalties in Bosnia and fail to qualify for the World Cup in the United States. What seemed impossible has become reality.

With this, Italy’s tally of consecutive World Cups watched from the sofa rises to three, after Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. Something unimaginable on the eve of the first playoff, the one played against Sweden.

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Since then, the players and the managers have changed, but in the last two cases the leadership of the FIGC has not, and — inevitably — it is being assigned the greatest share of the blame.

Debacle, Caporetto, psychodrama: call it what you want, but what we are witnessing is rewriting the pages of Italian sport, and doing so in the worst possible way. Turning to the press, today’s front pages can do nothing but highlight the failure of the senior national team.

🇮🇹 The three sports dailies

A clear common thread for Italy’s three sports dailies, two of which — Tuttosport and Il Corriere dello Sport — lead with the same image: Pio Esposito on the ground, his hands covering his face.

“Everyone go home” is the headline used twice, while Tuttosport opts for “Everyone out”. No further comment is needed.

📰 The other newspapers

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Even in the non-sports papers, the front pages do not overlook the Azzurri’s failure. From “World disaster” to an enigmatic “Now everyone go home,” the overall message is clear.

And Italy’s embarrassment crosses borders

As expected, Italy’s failure to qualify has caused a stir abroad as well, where three newspapers in particular have devoted their front pages to the Azzurri.

The French paper L’Équipe gives its entire front page to Donnarumma, with the headline “Italy, down again.”

Le Figaro also chooses an Italian for its front page, but this time it is Moise Kean.

Finally, Spain’s Marca runs with the headline “Third World Cup failure”.

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In short, abroad too there is plenty of talk about the shame of Gattuso’s national team.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.