Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup is astonishing. It’s an indictment on the current players, the staff, the FIGC, and calcio as a whole that FIFA’s 12th-place nation can’t make a 48-team tournament. The accusatory eulogies are pouring in and will probably continue for a couple months as the Azzurri apparatus releases stale statements without making any significant changes to a sporting structure that is plainly and painfully inadequate to keep pace with the nation’s expectations for the third
successive cycle.
Lost in these lamentations, of course, is Moise Kean’s historic goalscoring record. The Fiorentina forward has now scored in 6 straight games for his country. The streak begins with his brace in Dortmund in last year’s Nations League quarterfinal defeat to Germany and has continued through World Cup qualifiers against Estonia, Israel, Northern Ireland, and now Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For the record, Kean’s the only one of those 4 who accomplished the feat in competitive matches only rather than sprinkling in some strikes in friendlies. Italy’s played 11 games since that streak began (Kean’s missed 5 of them with injury), the Azzurri have scored 29 goals. Moise has 8 of them, accounting for 28% of the goal output. If you restrict it to games he’s actually played in, that jumps to a staggering 42%. Every time his country has needed him, Kean’s come up nails. Mateo Retegui, Francesco Pio Esposito, Gianluca Scamacca, and Italy’s other strikers are all talented, sure, but the Moose is better than all of them and deserves a chance to lead his nation on the biggest stage.
Although the most pea-brained observers will criticize him for missing a golden opportunity to put the Azzurri up 2-0, his opener was fantastic and should’ve been enough. Indeed, Rino Gattuso’s decision to remove Kean’s searing pace for the brawn of Esposito will doubtless be called into question, as the Viola striker would have offered a greater threat as Bosnia and Herzegovina hurled bodies forward in search of an equalizer.
Kean’s also the perfect example of what’s gone wrong for Italy from a youth development standpoint. He was a prodigy, Juventus’ youngest-ever player at 16 and the first guy born in the 2000s to make an appearance for in one of the top-4 European leagues. Juve’s sweaty, stupid obsession with Cristiano Ronaldo meant the Bianconeri sold 19-year-old Kean to Everton, where he predictably failed to settle and bounced around before ending up in Florence and reigniting his career last year.
The inability to foster such an obvious talent domestically is all too common on the peninsula and a huge part of why, in Italy’s most important game in 4 years, Gattuso ended up with the likes of Federico Gatti, Bryan Cristante, Leonardo Spinazzola, and Davide Frattesi on the pitch. The contrast with successful nations of similar population, GDP, and history—Germany, England, France, Spain—is stark. Those federations have, in the past 10 years, looked inward and created actionable plans to improve. The FIGC, meanwhile, acts like it’s still 1982 and Paolo Rossi is coming to the rescue.
It’s all academic at this point. Hypothetical. Meaningless. Italy’s out and Kean’s out with the rest of them. Maybe he’ll get a chance in 2030’s Morocco/Spain/Portugal World Cup. He’ll be 30 then, still young enough to star for a rebuilt national team. Maybe he’ll have lost a bit of his jaw-dropping pace but the talent won’t dry up. It’s a shame that Moise will have to wait despite doing everything in his power to drag these bozos to the next level. The least we can do is appreciate his excellence even as we mourn Italy’s colossal failure.
