Roberto Baggio proposed an overhaul of talent pathway in 2011 but it was never acted on and the national team’s approach now is just not working
T
he decline of Italy’s footballing expectations can be read in the headlines that greeted their third consecutive failure to qualify for a men’s World Cup. When the Azzurri lost their playoff against Sweden in November 2017, La Gazzetta dello Sport defined it as “The End” and an “Apocalypse”. After defeat by North Macedonia in 2022, Il Corriere dello Sport saw a country sinking “Into Hell”.
On Wednesday both newspapers led coverage of elimination by Bosnia and Herzegovina with a simpler, perhaps sadder, “Tutti A Casa” – Everybody Go Home. What else is there left to say? Italians understood long ago that 2018 was not some aberration but the continuation of a trend, their team having failed to reach the tournament’s knockout stage in 2010 or 2014.
After the first of those disappointments there was acknowledgment of a need to change gear. In August 2010, weeks after Italy finished bottom of a group featuring Paraguay, Slovakia and New Zealand, Arrigo Sacchi was appointed as coordinator of the national youth teams and Roberto Baggio as the president of the Italian Football Federation’s technical sector – a body charged with studying and disseminating best practices for coaching and player development.
