Italy Out for a Third Time: Bosnia's Penalty Shootout Heroics
Defeated on penalties in the European playoff final, the four-time champions become the first former winner to miss three consecutive World Cups.
I t happened again. Italy – four-time world champions, European champions in 2021 – will not be at a World Cup. For the third tournament in a row, the Azzurri come up short in qualifying. This time the executioner was Bosnia & Herzegovina, who edged a 2-2 playoff final on penalties in March to claim a debut World Cup berth.
The collapse traces back to the autumn. A 4-1 defeat in Norway in October consigned Italy to the playoffs. From there, the bracket was tight but navigable: a semi-final at home, a final on neutral ground. Italy won the semi. They could not quite finish the final.
Bosnia’s Edin Džeko, forty by the time the World Cup kicks off, is the headline name. But the deeper Bosnian squad – the kind that grinds out 2-2 draws and wins shootouts – is what carried them through. They join a tournament that already had an unusually deep European contingent: sixteen UEFA teams qualified, with Norway, Czechia, Sweden, Türkiye, and Bosnia all returning to the World Cup after long absences.
For Italy, the questions are deeper this time. Three straight tournaments. A third consecutive generation of footballers who will retire without a World Cup appearance. And a federation that, more than ever, looks like it needs structural answers rather than tactical ones.