APOCALYPSE CIAO!
Watching 10-man Italy blow their last chance to qualify for this summer’s Geopolitics World Cup, Football Daily couldn’t help but remember the schoolmasterly ticking-off with which the legendary commentator Barry Davies admonished a similarly depleted team of their predecessors 24 years ago. That particular iteration of Italy had at least made it to the summer jamboree, but upon seeing them being dumped out in the last 16 by co-hosts South Korea at Daejeon World Cup Stadium, Davies said what the rest of us were thinking: “And the Italians are out because they never learn,” he clucked. Of course, it could also be argued the Italians were out because they were the victims of what could charitably described as a series of farcical refereeing decisions, but their natural inclination towards extreme caution certainly didn’t help.
