FRANCE 98 – Team Detail

Italy will be making its 14th appearance in the World Cup finals – their 10th in a row. It is a competition that Italy have shone, coming just behind Brazil and Germany, in the all-time records. Three victories, two runner-ups, a third place in 1990 and a fourth in 1978. All three of Italy’s Cup wins came on European soil – at home in ’34, in France in ’38 and in Spain in ’82. For people who believe in ‘signs’ it is worth noting Italy were third in ’90, second in ’94 and in ’98…..?

The Italian championship, the Serie A, is considered the best domestic league in the world and leading clubs like AC Milan, Juventus and Inter Milan have been pre-eminent in European club competitions. This season three Italian clubs reached the European finals – Juventus in the European Cup and Inter Milan and Lazio in the UEFA Cup. Milan won the final, in Paris, 3-0.

The “Squadra Azzurra”, as the blue-clad Italians are known, are the beneficiaries of huge national support and immense media attention is given to every performance, good or bad. Several matches played by the Italian national team have special places in footballing history; like the victory of the team containing Mazzola, Riva and Rivera, who beat Germany 4-3 after extra-time in the semi-finals of the World Cup in Mexico — a match that will always remain engraved in the minds of those who saw it. The success in the 1982 World Cup in Spain is also one of the great moments of Italian football — a win achieved when Paolo Rossi, Dino Zoff, Marco Tardelli and Gaetano Scirea were among the best of their generation. This third and to date final victory allowed Zoff, captain and goalkeeper, to go into the record books. Aged 40 years and four months he became the oldest to lift the Cup.

Since then, the Italians have not managed to win a major title but were unfortunate to lose to Brazil on penalties in the 1994 World Cup in the United States. But there will be 30 million Italians cheering on Cesare Maldini’s team to to win their fourth World Cup and equal Brazil’s record. Maldini has won the European Under-21 championship three times – a World Cup would go along with those very nicely.