Italy woke up angry and disillusioned on Wednesday after the national team missed out on the World Cup for the third time in a row by losing a play-off to Bosnia, prolonging a sporting nightmare for the soccer-mad country.
“The World Cup curse,” said the front page of Italy’s main daily Corriere della Sera, calling for rebuilding in a country that has produced some of the game’s greatest players but has won only one match at the finals since lifting the trophy for the fourth time in 2006.
Headlines in La Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport, the country’s two main sports newspapers, both said “We’re all staying at home”, in reference to another summer without a World Cup.
Fans in Rome were left…