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Joined: Dec 1969
DC-
Yep, that's the context. It's not the relative quality of the exits - the U.S. loss was an indictment of the entire federation set-up.
Italy's exit is substantially related to their on-field performance; they have been pretty lackluster for the last couple of cycles, being eliminated in both group stages, albeit with the "biting" game being one of the losses. But that level of play would've easily qualified in any federation except for Conmebol.
In a larger context, though, it's also an indictment of the FIFA ranking system, which was used to set up the pools for qualifying. Portugal, Wales, Romania, and Croatia all were "pot 1" seeds; Italy, France, Sweden, and Poland were all pot 2 or 3, meaning they were going to be in a group facing one of the top 9. Maybe Wales or Romania, but also maybe Germany, or Spain, or England. Serbia got the luck of facing Wales as their top seed, and Poland got Romania; both of those teams won their groups.
And a fair bit to luck. Beyond the bad draw of Spain as their pot 1 seed, they got the short end of the stick drawing Sweden as their opponent in the playoffs (other matchups were Switzerland/Northern Ireland; Denmark/Ireland; and Greece/Croatia.) Sweden qualified in a tie for fifth-best second place team, but that was because they were in the toughest group, with three top-flight teams in France and the Netherlands. They aced out the Dutch on goal differential, but because they had fewer points, they were place in "pot 2" as a weaker second-place team.Â
The result wasn't the shock, to me; just the prospect of Italy not making the Cup, and the likely changes coming in qualification because of it. If nothing else, FIFA's ranking system is definitely going to get a closer look from an obsessed fanbase.
VG
