“Let’s just leave it be,” said Valentino del Duca. The restaurant worker from Rome was in no mood to talk about football after the Italian national team delivered another agonising blow, missing out on qualification for the World Cup finals for the third time in a row.
Corriere della Sera called the elimination, which came after Italy suffered a 4-1 penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a playoff, the “World Cup curse” while Gazzetta dello Sport marked it the “third apocalypse”.
