World Cup 2018: Tears of 'sky blue'

(Baonghean.vn) - This is the first time since 1958 that the Italian national team has failed to participate in the world's biggest football festival. "I still can't believe that Italy was eliminated, but Sweden showed that they deserved to get a ticket after their performance," De Rossi sadly shared after the 0-0 draw with Sweden..

In fact, people are too familiar with the past glory so they praise the Italian team, but the Swedish team is the team with stable performance and is considered the most difficult team in the playoffs. This is also the opponent that coach Ventura does not want to face at all.

Sweden has participated in the biggest football festival on the planet 11 times in history, and their best achievement was finishing second in the 1958 World Cup at home. The last time they participated in the world's most prestigious arena was the 2006 World Cup.

Fear

Daniele De Rossi (34 years old), Andrea Barzagli (36 years old), Giorgio Chiellini (33 years old), Buffon (39 years old) all shed tears after the match ended, no one wants to say goodbye to their career in this way. Photo: Internet)

After the 0-1 away defeat in the first leg, the Italian team had to score at least 2 goals against Sweden in the second leg if they did not want to miss the 2018 World Cup. Before the match at San Siro, coach Ventura said that the loss in Sweden was just an accident and they would turn the tables when they returned home.

However, the Italian audience witnessed the 2006 World Cup champions being unable to find a way to the opponent's goal. During the 90 minutes of play, the players in blue launched 17 shots towards goalkeeper Robin Olsen but could not score, thereby officially being eliminated after losing 0-1 on aggregate after two matches.

It was also seen that coach Gian Piero Ventura "was so mad that he wanted to put Danielle De Rossi, a defensive midfielder, on the field in the second half. Then the 34-year-old veteran reacted strongly to this decision when asked to warm up."Why the hell did I come on the field? We don't need a draw, we have to win!", the AS Roma player said while pointing to his teammate Lorenzo Insigne sitting nearby, implying that the coach had to put such an attacking player on the field.

At this point, coach Ventura "awakened" and stopped using De Rossi and used all three substitutions to strengthen the attack. Perhaps, out of pride, not Insigne was allowed to enter the field, but Stephan El Shaarawy, Andrea Belotti and Federico Bernadeschi were the chosen names. All three of these changes did not bring about results. Of course, the first person responsible for this failure was coach Ventura. Immediately after the match, the 69-year-old strategist apologized to all Italian football fans for the disappointing result. Mr. Ventura's contract with the Italian Football Federation will last until 2020, but perhaps everything will end sooner.

Tears fall

In disappointment, 4 pillars of Azzurri announced their farewell to the team, including Daniele De Rossi (34 years old), Andrea Barzagli (36 years old) and Giorgio Chiellini (33 years old), Buffon (39 years old). All 4 famous players above were in tears after this match ended, no one wanted to say goodbye to their career in this way.

“This is the biggest disappointment of my career. I don’t understand what we lacked to be eliminated from the World Cup. Everyone has their own thoughts, but it’s hard to accept this defeat. At Euro 2016, we cried, but at least Italy got through the group stage. Now we can’t get through. I hope the young players can do better than us,” Barzagli said.

"It's disappointing, not for myself but for Italian football," goalkeeper Buffon, who has played for the Italian national team for 20 years, said bitterly in tears. The goalkeeper born in 1978 made his Azzurri debut when he was put on the field in the 1998 World Cup qualifying play-off match with the Russian team (1-1 draw, Italy won 2-1 on aggregate). Last night, he said goodbye after a play-off match for a ticket. This time, Italy also drew, but could not qualify and Buffon said goodbye to the team in infinite sadness. In 2 decades, Buffon played 115 matches for the Italian national team and went through 5 World Cups, wearing the captain's armband 79 times. Both of these numbers are records for the Azzurri team.

In any case, it cannot be denied that Sweden is the better team, they are the ones who deserve to go to Russia after 2 matches showing their mettle. If Italy's finishing behind Spain in Group G of the 2018 World Cup qualifying round in Europe is acceptable, then their loss to Sweden in the play-off round is unbelievable for all fans of this team.

AT