It was unthinkable for Italy to not qualify for a World Cup Finals. There are no words in the English language-- or probably in the Italian one either-- to describe not playing in two successive tournaments. It's beyond unthinkable: it's impossible. Yet here we are. Italy will have not played in the World Cup Finals for a now-minimum of twelve years-- a competition they have won an incredible four times!
What has happened?
It's a generational thing. Take a look at the squad which was victorious in the 2006 tournament. They were an Italian "Gen X" squad, with a median and average birth year of 1977. Cynical, chippy, and focused on literal nipple-tweaking antics which successfully antagonized their opponents, they were built around a 4-2-3-1, winning ticky-tack fouls, then counter attacking when their opposition would inevitably make a frustration-borne mistake. That tournament famously ended with a Zinedine Zidane so irate that he head-butted "Gen X'er" Marco Materrazi!
For me, that's what made Italy so fun to watch: it was a team cut from the same cloth as my own personality: pragmatic, authority-smirking, and realistic.
I remember hearing traditional Italian culture described as, "Only an idiot works harder than he has to." I also recall Gianni Brera in the 1970's explaining how, in his view, Italians weren't the most robust people, and that counter attacking football was suited to both their culture, and their physical limitations as compared to other European nations. The "Gen X" brand of Italian was effective because it was in harmony with the conventional Italian character..
As the squad gradually phased from "Gen X" to "Millennial", so did the style of play. The inward, pessimistic, pragmatic approach slowly gave way to a "heroic" outward 4-3-3 focus on flourish, ball retention, and passing movements. As this happened, the team started to lose its identity. As if to prove my point, in yesterday's aftermath I've heard many pundits reflect with great exasperation, "Why is it that opponents of Italy are now playing 'Italian', and defeating Italy?", and "At least Catenaccio got us results."
In a sport with margins so thin that a single split-second moment can decide defeat or victory, it turns out that being a naively idealistic, emasculated, wimpy, second-rate "poor man's Barcelona" is simply not going to cut it for Italy. It's in total opposition to the Italian character, psyche, and tradition. It worked for the very brief window required to win the Euros, when it caught opponents off guard-- "that was Italy we just played?"-- but was so unsustainable it couldn't even survive into the following year!
Some major soul searching is required: what do the words "Italian football" mean? What do they represent? What differentiates-- or used to-- the Italian character and style of play from all the other countries in the world? Will simply being an unnatural, watered-down clone of other countries be enough to bring victory when there is no margin for error?
Maybe this hypothesis of mine will be right, or wrong. We'll see as time progresses. Unfortunately, we have a long ways to wait until the 2026 cycle. And who knows: in the end, maybe this is just what Italy deserves, with the way their citizenship went bonkers mad and Fascist-style authoritarian during the WuFlu nonsense. They have bigger societal and psychological issues than just football.