{"id":2386,"date":"2026-04-01T21:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/2386\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T21:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:03:07","slug":"italy-loss-leaves-soccer-fans-in-north-end-heartbroken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/2386\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Loss Leaves Soccer Fans In North End Heartbroken"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio)<\/a> \u2014 Italy is living a nightmare that may be difficult for people outside the country to appreciate. <\/p>\n

But for the third consecutive time, Italy failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026<\/a> on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n

Soccer is the holy grail in Italy, its national sport, indelibly linked to its culture and its history. <\/p>\n

Soccer, or football, is to Italy what baseball, basketball, football, and hockey all are combined in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Italy<\/a> is a four-time World Cup champion, the last time in 2006 when it beat France in a shootout. <\/p>\n

But while it’s bad enough Italy just lost to 65-ranked Bosnia\/Herzegovina<\/a> in penalty kicks, failing to qualify for the upcoming World Cup, this is the third straight time Italy has lost out, an almost unfathomable disaster of epic proportions for 12 years running (the World Cup is held every four years). <\/p>\n

Just one of the headlines in Italy this week: ‘The Third Apocalypse!’ screamed Gazetta dello Sport<\/a>.<\/a> <\/p>\n

After watching the game at bars in the North End following the loss, some fans were inconsolable. “A team like Italy, missing out on three World Cups in a row,\u00a0is not good for the sport or the country,” Franco said. “Like Italy, you expect to be there all the time. Now it’s been twelve years, so changes need to be made.” <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, even with Italy out, there still will be lots of excitement for the World Cup games in the North End and throughout the region. <\/p>\n

Team U.S.A.<\/a> plays its first World Cup game on June 9 against Paraguay<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WBZ NewsRadio’s Kyle Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ)<\/a> reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) \u2014 Italy is living a nightmare that may be difficult for people outside the country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1974,1976,1978,5,1975,36,1983,1985,1979,1984,1980,1977,1989,1986,1988,1990,1987,1991,1982,1981],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-boston","tag-breaking","tag-dan-rea","tag-italy","tag-new-england","tag-news","tag-news-radio","tag-news-talk-radio","tag-talk","tag-talk-radio","tag-traffic","tag-wbz","tag-wbz-1030-am-listen-online","tag-wbz-internet-radio","tag-wbz-news","tag-wbz-news-radio","tag-wbz-radio","tag-wbz-talk-radio","tag-wbz-am","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}