Corriere dello Sport<\/a> wrote:<\/p>\n\u201c(Gianluigi) Donnarumma kept us in the game on at least three occasions, so I wonder how players like (Federico) Dimarco and Calafiori could be outplayed in such an important match.<\/p>\n
\u201cQualification had become a matter of national dignity. Not being part of a tournament open to 48 nations is downright humiliating. Those who created the project, those who wanted and supported it, cannot tolerate this third failure. At home. Like us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calafiori\u2019s Performance<\/h2>\n
Calafiori is widely regarded as one of the finest Italian talents, and his poor showing came at the most inopportune moment. Despite his abilities, the high-stakes nature of the match, coupled with the team\u2019s numerical disadvantage, contributed to the disappointment. The Italian media have highlighted the impact of such crucial errors, but the performance does not define the player\u2019s overall quality or potential.<\/p>\n
While this defeat is a setback for both Calafiori and Italy, it remains an isolated incident in a promising career. The defender will look to move past this disappointment and continue to demonstrate his talent at club and international level in the coming seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Riccardo Calafiori has become a focus for the Italian media after Italy failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. For the third consecutive edition, Italy were required to progress through the playoffs, meeting Bosnia in the final last night. The match began promisingly as the Italians took the lead, but they were eventually reduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}