World Cup: Italy faces rebuilding
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A stunned Italy was still trying to come to grips Friday with its team’s ouster from the World Cup following a last-place performance in group play that ended without a win.
Italian newspapers showed no mercy on the World Cup champions from 2006, saying the defeat showed the weakness of an entire nation.
“The worst ever,’ the influential sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport said on its front page. Italy’s two leading newspapers had similar headlines. ‘Azzurri, defeat and shame,’ said Corriere della Sera. ‘Azzurri, shame and tears,’ said La Repubblica.
A picture of Italy striker Fabio Quagliarella in tears dominated the newspapers.
‘This is the result of a process. This is not the failure of a single mission, but a declaration that a kind of soccer in Italy is ending. The problem is what we have become,’ Mario Sconcerti wrote in Corriere della Sera.
That’s a theme soccer federation president Giancarlo Abete echoed when he called for serious analysis of what he says is a ‘structural crisis’ in the sport in Italy.
“We’ve got to develop a strategy to start over. This problem didn’t begin yesterday,” Abete said. “It’s been going on for a while. We have the duty to start over.”
Nine players on Italy’s squad were 30 or over, led by 36-year-old captain Fabio Cannavaro. Abete said he would introduce new coach Cesare Prandelli on July 1 and confirmed that Prandelli, who will lead the team through the 2014 World Cup, will be charged with a major overhaul.
Cannavaro, meanwhile, had a unique take on Italy’s demise, blaming it on violence in the stands that often mars games in Italy’s dilapidated stadiums.
‘Something has to change. Just look at our stadiums and the way people behave at games,’ Cannavaro said. ‘We’ve got to invest in younger players and learn from this loss. Otherwise it’s going to take another 27 years before we win the World Cup again — and that’s not possible for a country that loves football as much as Italy does.’