"We didn't succeed. It's fair to leave it to those who will come after." Gianluigi Buffon wrote that on Instagram after Italy's penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina. By Thursday, both he and FIGC president Gabriele Gravina were gone.
Italy won't be at the 2026 World Cup. That's three consecutive tournaments missed — 2018, 2022, and now this. The last time the Azzurri actually played at a World Cup finals, they won one match. That was twelve years ago.
A federation in freefall
Gravina had been in charge since 2018, taking over from Carlo Tavecchio, who resigned after the 2018 qualification failure. There's a pattern here that goes well beyond one man's tenure. Gravina won Euro 2020, which briefly made him untouchable. Two World Cup misses later, the Italian government ran out of patience, and Gravina — re-elected as recently as February 2025 with a mandate through 2028 — didn't wait to be pushed.
"After many years there is a feeling of great bitterness, but great serenity," he told reporters. The federation will hold an extraordinary assembly on June 22 to elect his replacement. Names already circling: former CONI chief Giovanni Malago (67) and ex-FIGC president Giancarlo Abete (75), who held the role from 2007 to 2014.
Buffon's exit was more personal. He'd offered his resignation immediately after the Bosnia loss but was asked to wait. Once Gravina moved, he didn't hesitate. The legend of the 2006 World Cup-winning side leaves having failed in the one job that mattered most to him — getting Italy back to the tournament.
Gattuso's future hangs in the air
The managerial question is now unavoidable. Gennaro Gattuso's contract expires in June, and with a new FIGC president coming in, the expectation of a full reset is entirely rational. Antonio Conte and Massimiliano Allegri have already been mentioned as candidates. Both are available, both come with big wages attached — and both would represent very different philosophies for what Italian football thinks it needs to become.
Italy's Sports Minister Andrea Abodi called this a "definitive defeat" and said Italian football needs to be "rebuilt from the ground up." That's not rhetoric. Italy hasn't won a knockout match at a World Cup since 2006. Whatever European success disguised, qualification failure twice in a row has now exposed it completely.
The odds on any manager walking into this role and turning things around quickly are long. The structural problems — a Serie A that has lost ground commercially and competitively, a youth development system that no longer reliably produces elite technical players — don't get solved in one cycle. Whoever takes Gravina's seat on June 22 inherits a genuine crisis, not just a bad result.
Gravina also managed to inflame things further on his way out. Asked why Italy excels in other sports but not football, he suggested it was because other disciplines are amateur while football is professional. Italian athletes lit up social media in response. Boxer Irma Testa, Olympic bronze medallist, replied: "We are the real professionals." The FIGC quietly issued a clarification. Not exactly the exit of a man who retained the room.
