For generations, playing in the World Cup was like an Italian birthright.
The nation has won every tournament from 1958 to 2014. It joined Brazil and Germany as the only countries to have won the World Cup four times, their most recent title coming in 2006.
Italy were then spectacularly eliminated from the group stage of the World Cup in 2010 and 2014. It didn’t quite make it to the 2018 edition – and missed out on 2022 as well.
Even when the field for this summer’s World Cup was expanded from 32 to 48 teams, the largest in the history of the tournament, Italy was still not a lock to win. In December, when the 42 teams studied their opponents in the group stage, Italy had to wait another four months to find out if their previously unimaginable World Cup drought would be ended, or extended.
That result will come on Tuesday, when Italy plays Bosnia and Herzegovina in a playoff game that will eliminate the loser and send the winner into a group with Canada, Qatar and Switzerland when the tournament opens this summer in Mexico, Canada and the US.
The last six places in the World Cup will be decided on Tuesday in playoffs that could see many teams qualify. Congo, who have not played in the World Cup since 1974, will face Jamaica, who are expected to appear for the first time since 1998.
Compared to those countries, Italy’s drought lasted half as long. But none of those countries have Italian culture. Italy are only in a do-or-die position after narrowly edging out Northern Ireland last week in the semi-finals. Gennaro Gattuso, Italy’s coach, told reporters he felt “butterflies” during the match.
Italy “took a small step forward,” Gattuso said. “Now we have to climb the mountain, Everest. We know that there is a lot at stake.”
Gattuso, 48, knows the pressure. He played in the 2006 Italy team that lifted the World Cup by beating France on penalty kicks. But when he took the Italy job last June – his predecessor was sacked after Italy were shut out by Norway and Moldova in World Cup qualifying – it came with the unthinkable. Not to bring Italy back to the top of the sport, but just in the bracket. Italy’s first decision to coach rejected the job. Gattuso was less than a year away from the start of the qualifiers.
“We felt positive since the coach arrived, we have to continue like this, there is no other way than to win,” said Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali after the victory over Northern Ireland.
Italy’s decline was not always obvious. It was the runner-up in the European Championships – a competition that is often seen as the bellwether of the country’s World Cup qualification – in 2000 and 2012, and won in 2020. But underneath, Italy’s development plan was eroding, former player Marco Amelia, goalkeeper of the 2006 team, told Reuters.
“The victory in 2006 consolidated and hid the limitations that the national program already had in terms of structures and preparation,” said Amelia. “We haven’t had enough faith in promising young players, and clubs invest too little in long-term planning. In Serie A (Italy’s top domestic league) there is a very high percentage of foreign players. The only way to change this is for clubs to invest heavily in young Italians, knowing that some of that investment might fail.”
Deloitte, the global statistics giant, has ranked which clubs generate the most revenue over the decades. In 2006, three Italian teams finished in the top seven.
However, in 2025, the top ranked team in Serie A, Inter Milan, was ranked 11th. The top 20 teams had three Italian teams, compared to nine from England’s dominant Premier League.
The last time an Italian team won the Champions League, the top competition among European clubs, was in 2010.
“Before, Italian players never went abroad,” Massimo Oddo, another member of the 2006 team told Reuters. “Now they have arrived, and young players are coming to Italy, taking the place of the Italians. Italian football must modernize the youth sector, because the talent is there, but it is not well supported.”
Gattuso is not the only former Azzurri player the country has turned to in hopes of restoring the national team’s global standing. When the country’s football federation was looking for a new head in 2023, it turned to Gianluigi Buffon, the goalkeeper who became a landmark in Italian football after participating in five World Cups, including 2006. His role can be seen as a personal one; his career representing Italy ended in 2017 when the country was eliminated from the World Cup qualifiers. He left the pitch of Milan’s famous stadium San Siro in tears.
“There is still a future for our football,” said Buffon after the end of 2017. “We are a proud, stubborn and hard-working nation and we always find a way to pick ourselves up after a bad fall.”
That feeling will be tested on Tuesday against Bosnia and Herzegovina. If Italy misses the third World Cup in a row, Buffon is reported to have said he will leave.
“Failure to qualify for the World Cup would be a very painful thing,” said Oddo.
