Italy miss the World Cup for the third time in a row: how one of football's great nations lost its way

Gennaro Gattuso stood in front of cameras in Zenica last night and apologised.

“I want to personally apologize since we didn't make it,” he said, as the sound of Bosnian supporters celebrating around the Bilino Polje Stadium carried through the walls. Italy had just lost a penalty shootout 4-1 to a Bosnia side ranked 54 places below them in the FIFA rankings, in front of 14,000 people in a compact stadium surrounded by apartment towers, to miss the World Cup for the third time in succession.

It is, statistically and historically, the most catastrophic run of underachievement in the programme's existence, and the question of how they got here has no easy answer.

The match itself followed a pattern that has become painfully familiar. Italy led through Moise Kean's composed 15th-minute finish, carved a chance from Bosnia's goalkeeper error, and looked composed enough to manage the game. Then Alessandro Bastoni was sent off in the 41st minute for a last-man foul on Amar Memic, and everything changed.

With 10 men for most of the contest, the Azzurri bent but held until the 79th minute, when substitute Haris Tabakovic pulled Bosnia level. Extra time produced nothing.

In the shootout, Pio Esposito and Bryan Cristante missed. Sandro Tonali scored the only Italian kick. Esmir Bajraktarevic, born in Appleton, Wisconsin, converted the winning penalty to send Bosnia to the World Cup. Italy went home.

Italy won the World Cup four times, in 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006. They were European champions as recently as 2021. They are the first former World Cup winners to miss three consecutive editions of the tournament. Their last knockout win at the competition was in 2006, against France in the final, which means a generation of Italian football supporters has grown up watching a national team that hasn't won a World Cup game in 20 years.

Leonardo Spinazzola, one of the veterans in last night's squad, put it better after the final whistle: “It's upsetting for everyone. For us, for our families, and for all the kids who have never seen Italy at a World Cup.”

But then, the issue is even deeper than that.

Italy's domestic league has been in relative decline compared to the Premier League, La Liga and even the Bundesliga for over a decade, which affects the quality of footballers coming through the system at the highest level. The country has historically relied on tactical discipline and collective organisation to compensate for individual deficiencies, but as elite tactics have become standardised across European football, that advantage has diminished.

The production line of natural footballers has thinned, partly because youth development has lagged behind the investment levels of Spain, Germany, France and England, and partly because Italian clubs have brought in foreign players at a rate that limits opportunities for young domestic talent.

There's also a management instability that has been an issue. Roberto Mancini won Euro 2020 with a team playing brave, progressive football and then left in August 2023, mid-cycle, for a lucrative Saudi Arabia contract that left Italian football genuinely stunned. Luciano Spalletti replaced him, was fired in 2025 after a disastrous run of results including the qualifying defeat to Norway that started the latest crisis, and Gattuso, a World Cup winner as a player in 2006, inherited a squad already on the back foot.

His appointment was as much about emotional connection to the programme as it was about tactical innovation. He managed to beat Northern Ireland 2-0 in the semifinal, but Bosnia, playing at home, in noise, with nothing to lose, was a different proposition.

Italy's absence from the World Cup is the headline that will follow football into the summer. A country that gave the sport Maldini, Rivera, Zoff, Baresi, Del Piero, Pirlo, Buffon and Totti will watch the biggest tournament in history without representation for the third consecutive cycle.

The fans who travelled to Zenica came home with nothing. The kids Spinazzola mentioned, who've never seen Italy at a World Cup, will wait at least four more years. And Gattuso, who was part of the 2006 team that last brought the trophy home, now has to explain what comes next for a programme that has no obvious answers and very little time to find them.