Quote from: Silberman on Today at 03:43:14 AM

On the particular case of Italy I think they are facing some sort of identity crisis...

I will not quote all 3 of you who are talking about Italy to not pollute the post and make it longer
The Italian team is very curious, but it is not the only one. We can mention Brazil, Germany and even Spain, as teams that win a world cup or other competition, play very well, and soon after have disastrous results.

My theory is something that can explain how a team can win a Euro in 2020 and not qualify for the 2022 world cup.
Italy's team won the Euro 2020, but not as a long-term project where they work to maintain a group and a way of playing for many years. Just note that in 2020 it worked out very well and in the qualifiers don't.
We can also mention the 2016 and 2017 team that did not qualify for 2018.

In 2006 when Italy was world champion, it was easy to know how Italy was going to play, with a very strong team defensively, well put together, look at that: Buffon, Cannavaro, Materazzi, Pirlo, Gattuso etc, and before that Italy got good results in cups.

Now, just talking about Euro 2024, Italy is fully capable of qualifying, England should qualify first in the group, but Italy can and should qualify second, because the teams from Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta are not good enough.
A team like Italy is very bad for us bettors to try to get something right, it is much better not to bet on their games. It is better to rely on the results of France, England, and Croatia, which are much better at the moment.