In or out. The Italian national football team will have to win the playoffs to qualify for the 2026 World Cup: today, Thursday 26 March, they will challenge Northern Ireland in Bergamo, in case of victory, on Tuesday 31 March there will be the final away against Wales or Bosnia. The men led by Rino Gattuso are called to dispel a taboo: the Azzurri, in fact, did not participate in the last two editions of the world championship competition, that of 2018 in Russia (eliminated by Sweden) and 2022 in Qatar (ousted by North Macedonia). How many times have we missed the World Cup? How has the qualification system changed over the decades? Have the other big names in football suffered like us? Let’s try to clarify things a little to pass the time.
Italy’s four absences at the World Cup and the formats that ousted us
In its long history the Italian national team has not participated in four editions of the World Cup (the same number of titles won). The first time occurred in 1930, when Uruguay hosted the first World Cup organized by FIFA: there were no qualifying matches for the South American tournament. FIFA worked to invite the best selections of the time but almost all the European teams (including Italy) refused to participate, for various reasons, including logistical ones: the Federations were not willing to take on the hardships of a transoceanic journey by ship which, with the stay in South America, would have lasted a total of at least two months.
The second World Cup without the Azzurri was played in 1958. In the qualifiers for the tournament, held in 1957, Italy found itself in a mini-group with Portugal and Northern Ireland. It started with a win against the British but then lost 3-0 in Portugal. In the return match against the Portuguese, however, the national team reversed the result, winning 3-0. With still a good chance of qualifying, on 15 January 1958 Italy showed up in Belfast for the last decisive match against Northern Ireland. The match should have been played in December, but due to the difficulties the referees had in moving to Belfast (the flight was prevented by fog), it was postponed to January. Italy, led by the tandem of Alfredo Foni (Inter coach at the time) and the FIGC secretary Giuseppe Vian, would have had enough not to lose and instead lost 2-1, finishing the group in second place with one point less than Northern Ireland who qualified for the Swedish edition then won by Pelè’s Brazil who still had to turn 18.
We arrive at the two “modern” defeats, which came after two second places in the qualifying round. 2018, this time no mini-round, but a play-off match with Sweden: after the 1-0 defeat in Solna, Giampiero Ventura’s boys did not go beyond a 0-0 draw in a silent San Siro. The nightmare repeats itself for the fourth (and hopefully for a long time, last) time in 2022, in the playoff format that also applies this year with semi-final and final. In the first match played at the Barbera stadium in Palermo, North Macedonia condemned Roberto Mancini’s national team with Aleksandar Trajkovski’s goal in injury time.
Cursed qualifiers: the comparison with the big names in world football
Considering only the national teams that have won at least one World Cup (there are 8 in total), the only big name to have never missed the big event is Brazil: 23 participations out of 23. Close behind is Germany with 21 (with the exception of the very first in 1930 for the same reasons as Italy and that of 1950, when the Germans were excluded as a consequence of the Second World War). Argentina follows with 19, Italy with 18 (which could become 19 if we win our playoffs), England, France and Spain with 17. Uruguay closes with 15 appearance tokens. Analyzing only the non-participations resulting from failure to qualify, however, this is the situation:
