For generations, playing in the World Cup was akin to Italian birthright.

The nation made every tournament from 1958 to 2014. It joined Brazil and Germany as the only nations to win the World Cup four times, its most recent title coming in 2006. A run deep into the knockout stage became as expected as the Azzurri’s signature blue jerseys.

Then Italy was stunningly knocked out of the group stage at World Cups in 2010 and 2014. It failed to qualify at all for the 2018 edition — then, it missed out in 2022, as well.

Even when the field for this summer’s World Cup was expanded from 32 to 48 teams, the largest in tournament history, Italy was stunningly still no lock to qualify. In December, when 42 teams learned their opponents in the group stage, Italy had to wait four more months to know whether its previously unthinkable World Cup drought would be broken, or extended.

That outcome will come Tuesday, when Italy plays Bosnia and Herzegovina in a playoff match that eliminates the loser and sends the winner into a group with Canada, Qatar and Switzerland when the tournament opens this summer across Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

The final six spots in the World Cup will be decided Tuesday in playoff games that could see multiple longshot teams qualify. Congo, which hasn’t played in a World Cup since 1974, will face Jamaica, which is looking to make its first appearance since 1998. Iraq, seeking its first berth since 1986, and Bolivia, absent since 1994, will face off in another playoff game.

Compared to those countries, Italy’s drought has lasted a fraction of the length. But none of those countries has Italy’s tradition. Italy is in this do-or-die position only after narrowly edging past Northern Ireland last week in a playoff semifinal. Gennaro Gattuso, the Italian coach, told reporters that he’d felt “butterflies” during the game.

Italy had “taken a little step forward,” Gattuso said. “Now we have to climb the mountain, the Everest. We know that there’s a lot at stake.”

Gattuso, 48, knows about pressure. He played on Italy’s 2006 team that lifted the World Cup trophy by outlasting France on nerve-wracking penalty kicks. But when he took the Italian job last June — his predecessor was fired after Italy was shut out in losses to Norway and Moldova in World Cup qualifying — it came with once-unthinkable stakes. Not to return Italy to the top of the sport, but merely into the bracket. Italy’s first choice to coach had turned down the job. Gattuso had less than a year to pull off qualifying.

“We’ve been feeling positive since the coach arrived, we’ve got to continue like this, there’s no other option but to win,” Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali said after the win against Northern Ireland.

Italy’s decline wasn’t always so obvious. It was the runner-up in the European championships — a competition often seen as a bellwether for a nation’s World Cup fitness — in 2000 and 2012, and won in 2020. But under the surface, Italy’s developmental program was eroding, former player Marco Amelia, the goalkeeper of the 2006 team, told Reuters.

“The victory in 2006 covered and hid the limits that the national system already had in terms ​of structures and preparation,” Amelia said. “We didn’t put enough faith in promising young players, and clubs invested too little in long-term planning. In Serie A (Italy’s top domestic league) ​there’s a very high percentage of foreign players. The only way to change this is for clubs to invest more ⁠in young Italians, knowing that some of those investments might fail.”

Deloitte, the global accounting giant, has ranked which clubs generate the most revenue for decades. In 2006, three Italian teams finished in the top seven.

By 2025, however, the highest-ranked team from Serie A, Inter Milan, ranked 11th. The top 20 featured three Italian teams, compared to nine from England’s dominant Premier League.

The last time an Italian team won the Champions League, the top competition among European clubs, was 2010.

“Before, Italian players never went abroad,” Massimo Oddo, another member of the 2006 team told Reuters. “Now they do, and mediocre players arrive in Italy, taking space away from ​Italians. Italian football should modernise the youth sector, because the talent exists, but is not well supported.”

Gattuso isn’t the only former Azzurri great the country has turned to in hopes of restoring its national team’s worldwide standing. When the country’s football federation went looking for a new head in 2023, it turned to Gianluigi Buffon, the goalkeeper who became an iconic figure in Italian football after taking part in five World Cups, including 2006. His assignment could be seen as personal; his international career representing Italy ended in 2017 when the country was eliminated from World Cup qualifying. He left the field of Milan’s famed San Siro stadium tearful.

“There is still a future for our football,” Buffon said after the 2017 elimination. “We are a proud, stubborn and hard-working nation and we always find a way of lifting ourselves up after bad falls.”

That sentiment will be tested Tuesday against Bosnia and Herzegovina. If Italy misses a third consecutive World Cup, Buffon has reportedly said he will step aside.

“Failing to qualify for the World Cup would be an enormous blow,” Oddo said.