Behind the goal after the shootout, the Bosnian ultras performed a choreography showing their U.S. visas. Fanatico will be participating in the World Cup. The crowd of Italian players who had been watching them from the halfway line turned away and tried to comfort each other. They cried while everyone partied around them.
“It’s a nightmare,” Leonardo Spinazzola said through tears. “I’ve been with the national team for nine years and I haven’t played in a World Cup yet. It’s terrible, for Italy and for us.”
None of his other teammates spoke, including captain Jijo Donnarumma. They were too distraught and too angry at the result and referee Clement Turpin. As fate would have it, the Frenchman also refereed the last World Cup play-off in 2022, when Italy lost to North Macedonia.
During the interrogation, Gennaro Gattuso bit his lower lip. It seemed like a coping mechanism in a predicament. He apologized to the 500 fans who came to Zenica and the millions who watched back home. “It hurts,” he said, needing time to compose himself. The Calabrian thanked his players with a strong belief that they deserved better. “It’s been years since I saw the national team play with so much heart,” Gattuso insisted. He had some regrets. 1st photo: Alessandro Bastoni’s red card before half-time. Secondly, Moise Kean missed a chance to make it 2-0 with 10 men.
Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso leaves the pitch after losing the World Cup qualifying play-off final soccer match between Bosnia and Italy in Zenica, Bosnia, Tuesday, March 31, 2026 (Fabio Ferrari/Lapresse, Associated Press)
Moments like this caused Italy to become the first former champions to miss out on three consecutive World Cups. A moment that is often forgotten in the grander, more general story of the decline of Italian football. For example, in 2017, neither the players nor the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) were able to seize the opportunity. They should have acted on instinct and staged a revolt to remove the inept Gian Piero Ventura as head coach between the first and second games of the playoffs against Sweden. In 2022, Jorginho’s missed penalties against Switzerland at home and away were the difference between earning automatic qualification. In other words, each shortcoming had its own delicate margins and set of circumstances.
On Tuesday night, Gattuso, FIGC president Gabriele Gravina and delegation head Gigi Buffon sat in a cramped press room in Vilino Polje, prepared to face calls for their resignation en masse. Buffon looked distressed. Nine years ago, when he went in on goal against Sweden, Jakob Johansson’s snap shot deflected wide to Daniele De Rossi. It was then that the trauma of Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup began. Getting it right obviously means a lot to the proud Italian and his country’s all-time most capped player.
It was Buffon who chose Gattuso last summer, even though his former teammate had spent a year working in the Balkans with Hajduk Split. Despite all respect for Gattuso’s career as a player, not everyone was confident in Gattuso’s ability to succeed where others had failed to take Italy to the World Cup.
“I’m glad that you realize that things are improving,” Buffon said, while offering faint praise for his team. “But our main goal was to qualify for the World Cup.” Fortunately, he said the FIGC would not rush to a decision on what to do next. Buffon added: “The season ends in June, but until then I think it is right to carry out my duties towards the FIGC and the president.”
No one quit. This caused shockwaves in Italy. FIGC president Gravina did not resign after the defeat against North Macedonia in 2022 and a lackluster performance in the 2024 Euro 2024 last-16 defeat against Switzerland. The common thread is that Gravina’s critics do not understand how Italy can break the cycle while he is still in charge.
Rather than focusing on the result, Gravina praised the players’ performance. “Gattuso defined them as heroic,” he said. Italy fought for more than 90 minutes against a Soviet-style skyscraper overlooking Vilino Polje. Bastoni’s sending off and Haris Tabakovic’s equalizing goal could have caused the team to collapse, but the hope was that Donnarumma, who had already made over 10 saves after winning the penalty shootout, would perform at the same level as he did in the penalty shootout that clinched Euro 2021.
Use Chrome Browser for a more accessible video player
Players and fans were in full celebration after Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated Italy on penalties to qualify for the country’s second World Cup.
Donnarumma spent much of the second half of extra time arguing with the fourth official for not sending off Tarik Muharemovic for challenging Marco Palestra in front of the box. It is unclear how much the situation would have been different had there been a different decision. Instead, all we know is that Pio Esposito showed incredible courage by stepping up to take Italy’s first penalty, but then Brian Cristante missed it. These are further details of Italy’s decline, which Gravina may cite to support his claim that Italy were just a few kicks away from an epic qualification in Bosnia.
“Gattuso is a great coach,” he said. “I asked him and Buffon to stay.” Patient for some, offended for others. Continuation is not a convincing answer at the moment, and not at a time that Gravina admits is “a time of great crisis.”
The atmosphere in Zenica was tense, but the Bosnian fans followed in the footsteps of captain Edin Dzeko and applauded by singing the Italian national anthem before kick-off. Dzeko had asked Italy to do so because they were the first team to play in the capital Sarajevo after the Bosnian war 30 years ago. After the match, a Bosnian journalist asked Gattuso, who had been friends with the Italian national team since a friendly in 1996, why Italy had failed to qualify for the World Cup. Gattuso said there are people better qualified than him to respond. Again, it didn’t inspire confidence.
Italy have been trying to reinvent themselves since finishing first in the group in 2010 and 2014. Arrigo Sacchi has been appointed to the next generation coaching staff. More age groups were introduced. Government intervention through CONI (Italian Olympic Committee) has resulted in a series of new proposals. For example, Serie A clubs were allowed to register a B team in Italy’s third tier to bridge the gap between youth team soccer and men’s soccer.
These changes have paid off. After reaching the finals in 2013, 2018 and 2019, Italy won the U-17 Euro in 2024. Francesco Camarda, who broke Paolo Maldini’s record for being the youngest debutant in Milan’s history, was also part of that team. Michael Cayode won the final. After reaching the finals in 2016 and 2018, Italy also won the 2023 Under-19 Euro. Inter star Esposito, who missed Italy’s opening spot-kick, was also part of that team.
So all is not well for Italy. Much of the attention is focused on Italian teams being eliminated from the Champions League, but it was only last season that they started the league with five teams after topping the UEFA coefficient. Ownership is also much healthier than it was 10 years ago, with Milan, Inter and many other clubs under stable, well-capitalized management. Co-hosting Euro 2032 means the stadium is undergoing its first renovation in almost half a century. The new San Siro has finally been given the green light. Artemio Franchi in Florence is being rebuilt. These are all signs of progress.
However, the national team’s struggles to qualify for the World Cup have hindered everything, including winning the 2021 Euros. When Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup nine years ago, Gravina’s predecessor Carlo Tavecchio called it an apocalypse. Revelation, by its very nature, cannot have a sequel. Apocalypse Now was an independent film. Unlike The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola did not make it into a trilogy. He left that to FIGC. And as trilogies go, this is a tragedy in the football world.
This article was originally published in The Athletic.
© 2026 Athletic Media Company
