The flow of tears was unbridled in the tiny Zenica stadium in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The hosts cried with joy at the historic victory over Italy, the former football powerhouse.
Grief and shame, meanwhile, among the delegation from the other side of the Adriatic. Francesco Pio Esposito, one of the unlucky kickers in the penalty shootout, hid his face under the jersey. Keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who with his saves had brought Italy to the penalty shootout, folded his hands over his head and seemed to sink to the ground.
Even head coach Gennaro Gattuso had moist eyes. “It is simply bitter and hurts infinitely. I am especially sorry that we won’t go to the World Cup for the third time in a row,” he said.
Federation president Gabriele Gravina said that successes in other sports come only from amateurs.
At that moment, newspapers and online portals had long since finished their headlines. “All Home” proclaimed the daily Repubblica and the sports paper Corriere dello Sport in unison. La Gazzetta dello Sport doveed into the metaphor vault and spoke of the “third apocalypse,” the worst of all, since two apocalypses had already preceded it. “Now we are no longer shocked, it was also not an unforeseen catastrophe. It will instead become normal,” was the description of the situation.
Heroes, who fail undeservedly
While doom scenarios were being painted from the outside, inside the team messages of perseverance dominated. Gattuso, for instance, praised his players as “heroes” and went so far as to claim that after all the effort of the past months they did not deserve such a result.
Of course it was commendable that the former defensive midfielder stood by his players in this terrible hour. One would have hoped for an analysis from him as a diplomatically trained football coach. The lack of it sets him apart distinctly from the so-called laptop colleagues like Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel. They, with a well-oiled tongue, sometimes attribute poorly interpreted role profiles or missing holding sixes as causes for underperformances, as the term so unclearly put it, into the ball-discursive field. Gattuso, on the other hand, indulged in a celebration of the morality of his squad.
It was obvious, however, that what was missing most were the footballing means. The Azzurri did not create many chances. And the few they had, they squandered rather miserably. The lead goal Italy scored owed itself to a mistake by the Bosnian goalkeeper. In the shootout, there were two misses out of three attempts. Classic playoff homework not done, one might say.
Coaches go, officials stay
The coach is unlikely to be able to stay after this performance. Delegation chief Gianluigi Buffon had already tied his remaining tenure to reaching the World Cup. That he intends to fulfill his contract for the last three months until June has nothing to do with football reasons and everything with respect for the federation.
The officials there are characterized above all by a remarkable willingness to cling to chairs and posts. The Corriere dello Sport, for its part, reported that Gattuso and Buffon had already appeared with their resignations during the night, a move federation president Gravina rejected precisely because he himself wants to stay. Gravina stressed that only the federation bodies could decide his fate. However, the air is growing thinner for the top official. In the Italian Parliament, deputies had already called on the sports minister to dismiss Gravina promptly.
Gravina has by now probably also angered large parts of Italian sport. When asked why Italians in other sports have been so successful recently, for example at the Winter Olympics or as female volleyball players in Paris, the football boss did not hesitate to say that they are almost all amateurs, and therefore, as the counter-argument goes, success is achieved.
Gravina forgot, however, that tennis pro Jannik Sinner is currently dominating the scene with the felt ball and Kimi Antonelli is breaking youth records in Formula 1 in rapid succession. All full professionals from Italy. However, not developed within federation structures.
According to Gravina’s analysis, the next coach of the Squadra Azzurra only has two paths: either to commit fully to the amateur sector of football, i.e., the fourth tier and below, or to detach the national team completely from the federation, so that professionals can do the job undisturbed by inept officials.
