Franco Baresi, honorary vice-president of AC Milan, spoke as follows about the failure of the Italian national team, which has once again failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup for a third consecutive time, after a penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Yesterday there were some incidents that negatively affected the match for our team, but Italy cannot end up playing for qualification at the very last moment. The entire Italian football system must take responsibility (‘mea culpa’) because the results of the last twenty years are there for everyone to see, except of course for the isolated triumph at the European Championship. Gennaro Gattuso has put his heart and soul into it in recent months and, in my opinion, has also done a good job with the little time he had available; unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. It’s not up to me to say whether he should continue, but he is certainly among those least responsible for this defeat.”
