Reasons for Italy to feel positive, and negative, about 2026 World Cup hope

DORTMUND, GERMANY – MARCH 23: Moise Kean of Italy celebrates scoring his team’s first goal during the UEFA Nations League Quarterfinal Leg Two match between Germany and Italy at Football Stadium Dortmund on March 23, 2025 in Dortmund, Germany. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

Italy failed to get past Germany and confirmed some disastrous defensive issues, but Susy Campanale insists there is still reason for optimism in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

There is an unfortunate tendency among Italian football fans, and indeed their media, to fly off the handle at the slightest shift. Teams, players and coaches are seen as either magnificent or awful, sometimes swinging wildly between the two positions depending on the latest result. It would be very easy to press the panic button following the Nations League quarter-final against Germany, but it would not be an entirely accurate response.

If those two matches were split into four halves, we’d have a pretty even tie, as reflected by the final 5-4 aggregate result. Italy really should’ve scored more goals in the first half at San Siro and the second in Dortmund, while most of the goals – some comically so – were avoidable with a few adjustments on defending from set plays. Adjustments such as paying the slightest bit of attention when a corner has been awarded. It is not often that the cliché “that’s a schoolboy error” can be applied so literally. A collective switching off so dumb, it even warranted a write-up in The New York Times.

Much as it might seem like this is a deeply-rooted problem within the Italy defence, it is one that ought to be relatively easy to fix with some more intense training sessions, the kind that simply aren’t available during these short breaks for international duty. I refuse to believe that Alessandro Bastoni can be so strong in the air at Inter and yet so weak the moment he puts on an Azzurri jersey. Luciano Spalletti is right, that ludicrous goal from a corner is the kind of wake-up call these players can never forget, making it a valuable lesson in not getting caught napping ever again.

A valuable wake-up call for Italy

There are positives to be taken from the fact Moise Kean’s career-best form at Fiorentina seems to be carrying on an international level too. Going forward, the Nazionale will be able to count on Mateo Retegui and Gianluca Scamacca, but overall there really is a dearth of other quality options in attack. This is hardly a new problem, Italy have lacked a genuine centre-forward since Luca Toni at the 2006 World Cup, which is why they had to cast the net so wide as to bring in Retegui, at the time a relative unknown in Argentina.

The response to this unfortunate feature of the Italian football landscape has been to focus on keeping the ball to feet, passing out from the back and using the midfielders to swarm forward. This is what Spalletti was trying to get his team to do in Dortmund, but it failed miserably, they couldn’t get out of their half for most of the match and were utterly incapable of breaking through the German press. Sometimes, Spalletti must learn to go a bit more route one and recognise when things aren’t working. Riccardo Calafiori is one thing when playing out from defence, Federico Gatti or Alessandro Buongiorno are quite another.

The coach was asked which of the two versions seen in Dortmund was ‘the real Italy’ and he replied the truth was always somewhere in the middle. That is something we need to keep in mind as we begin the 2026 World Cup qualifying process. It is not as disastrous as that first half, nor as exciting as the comeback from 3-0 down to draw 3-3. On any given day, the Azzurri are capable of both those performances – even both in a single day, as it turns out. The key is to keep all of that in mind and maintain some balance in our evaluations.

Those who decry that we’ll fail to top a group containing Norway, Israel, Estonia and Moldova are just as wilfully obtuse as the ones who assumed we’d easily sweep a very strong Germany aside. It is still a very winnable group and Italy know where their issues lie. Traditionally, the Nazionale didn’t succeed when it had the strongest group of players, but when it had the fiercest motivation. We need more of that attitude seen in the second half in Dortmund and there is no greater motivation than reaching the first World Cup since 2014.