Bosniaaaaa    and + another African team 

Oh I don't disagree that it was a bad call, but the fact that the Italians (no offence, I love all of you guys) are the only ones complaining about the decision on here is funny to me after what happened at the Olympics    Canada has had more bad calls going against us over the years than I can count, it is what it is.   Agree, there's been so many controversies over the years with decisions from idiotic short track officials, that they need to do something about it... and I'm frankly quite surprised they still haven't 

has 2 wins already  Not bad for complete minnows!

Your most ever at a Summer Olympics was 14 golds, 20 would be a big increase even with the new sports  I’d say out of them, only costal rowing has a chance of gold, and flag football a medal if they can qualify.    Wouldn’t breaking the 14 from 1984 be a good for Italy? I’d say so. They can’t all convert after all, and you’ve been hovering in the 8-13 range for a while (although Italy has gotten better the past two)   For Canada at least, 11+ golds would be amazing, anything else would be a bonus. We won 9 in Tokyo which is our highest total ever. 

Personally, I'm really looking forward to Japan's performance in the World Cup. From the current situation, Japan has a very distinctive playing style. They have strong tactical ideas whether facing European teams or South American teams. However, Japan has never won a knockout match in the World Cup. As someone who has been following Asian football for a long time, I really admire Japanese football.

Italy didn't qualify again.    Well, now all that's left is for Germany to be eliminated again in the group stage and we'll guarantee another 4 years of "Brazil, the only five-time champion in history, nobody is bigger than Brazil, respect our history and blah blah" that we use on the internet.

Failing to qualify for the World Cup once can be put down to bad luck or other reasons, but missing out three times in a row must be due to an all-round gap. I feel sorry for Italy.

Italians can only blame themselves. Serie A has been run by foreigners more than any other Top 5 domestic league. There are zero global stars not named Donnarumma. This is the weakest Italian crop of players I can remember and it's not even close.   As for Poland, our defense did a terrible job. Unlike the much-maligned Michniewicz & Probierz who often parked the bus, Urban completely run out of BS luck since errors proved too numerous & too costly.

Okay, but defeats to Macedonia and Bosnia are unacceptable. Above all, let Italians start playing in Italian clubs... Look at Milan or Como...  Another think is the old and ugly stadiums - Türkiye or Poland currently have much better infrastructure than we do.

Problem is, that the current funding system of Italian sports - since 2018- relies on football paying the lion's share through taxes (around 70% of the sum that is redistributed). So the rest is strong until it can draw money from football, which in turn makes football weaker and less able to generate money and then who knows.