00:00Italy not at the World Cup. We're going to commiserate then, I suppose, with our correspondent
00:06Seema Gupta, who joins us from Rome. Seema, I know you were watching this last night.
00:11I mean, what on earth went wrong?
00:15Well, it was a massive disappointment here in Italy. Unbelievable. It was hard. The road on
00:23the way here, we saw a change in coach and then eventually leading to the unbearable shock of
00:29having to go through playoffs yet again and being scarred by previous attempts as well.
00:37Now for the third time in a row, Italy, a four-time winner of the World Cup, the first time
00:43ever
00:43a winner is set to miss the tournament three consecutive times. And it's the topic in bars
00:50across the country. I spoke to one fan this morning who said it was a waste of time staying up
00:57till
00:57midnight last night to watch this game. Just a huge disappointment. Another saying, well,
01:03he was 14 the last time Italy was in a World Cup and a child when they actually won. So
01:08he doesn't
01:09even remember. Another saying, Italian children yet again will see a World Cup without Italy in it.
01:14So you can imagine the papers were covering this story. It's on the front page of every paper,
01:19let alone, of course, the sports papers. Here I have with me La Gazzetta dello Sport talking about Italy
01:25without a World Cup for the third time in a row. Everyone goes home. The nightmare continues.
01:32And then you have the Correa della Sport paper with the photo that has become the image of this game.
01:40Pio Esposito expressing the despair when he missed that penalty. The game went all the way to penalty
01:46shootouts. And Italy, of course, losing there. A third failure, it says here. And then even in
01:53regular papers, not sports papers, Correa della Sera, the Milan-based daily, has the photo of the
01:59disappointment. The Azzurri eliminated the curse of the World Cup. The La Repubblica, the Rome-based daily,
02:08also the image of despair, everyone going home. And also the image of Gennaro Gattuso,
02:14the coach, he said he was sorry that he couldn't do it. And finally, La Stampa, the Turin-based daily,
02:21with that image as well, a disaster of a World Cup. So clearly just shock all round that for the
02:29third time in a row, Italy will not be in the World Cup. Sima, I was going to ask, presumably
02:34some
02:34kind of longer-term reflection is now needed. But as you said there, it's the third time in a row
02:38now.
02:38It's a kind of a longer, longer, perhaps even longer-term reflection now needed.
02:45Yes, exactly. I mean, you have the president, the head of the Italian Football Federation,
02:50saying that he will not step down. But Italian football has reached a profound crisis. And
02:56experts have said that this is because there's not been enough investment, really. If you compare,
03:00for instance, to the Premier League in the UK or other European leagues, not enough money in the
03:05sport. On top of that, no longer quotas in terms of the number of non-European players are in place.
03:12So there's been an influx of non-European players in the Serie A. And that has mean that the clubs
03:19are not investing enough. There's too little investment in promising young Italian players.
03:25Also, perhaps stadiums need modernising. So really, a question of money and a question of
03:30supporting the youth in the country. There's a lot of talk about that, lots of soul-searching,
03:36lots of profound, deep thought as to how Italy is going to get out of this. If you remember,
03:43in 2006, now that's 20 years ago, is when Italy won the World Cup. You had names like
03:49Alessandro Del Piero, Francesco Totti, Gianluigi Buffon. These were big names. Now, a lot of the big
03:56names in Italian football play overseas. They don't play in local clubs because that's not where
04:02the money is. So really, about maintaining players, starting out when they're young and helping them
04:08get to that level. Clearly, a lot of soul-searching, a lot of talk now on what needs to happen.
04:14They have
04:15to scratch and really have a look at the entire system, is what many analysts are saying.
04:22Seema, commiserations to you, commiserations to everyone who's Italian. Next time. Okay, next time.
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