THE MATH IS ALREADY telling a grim tale. If Norway wins its five remaining qualifiers, Italy will have no choice but to compete for a place in the ill-fated World Cup qualifying playoffs and run the risk of missing the tournament for a third consecutive time. Even if the Norwegians lose their second match against the Italians in November, they'll likely have a big enough goal difference to finish in first place. As of now, Italy is a whopping nine points and 13 goals short of parity having only played two fewer games.

Italians think of the playoffs as a sort of burial ground. Rightfully so: It's where the national team lost to Sweden and North Macedonia and where they were ultimately ruled out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. But second place in Group I is probably the best Italy can do. The playoffs are likely coming again. That's how much Friday's 3-0 loss to Norway affects the standings.

Normally a single loss wouldn't feel so dramatic. But it meant the end for head coach Luciano Spalletti, who had allowed morale to crater in recent months. His players embarrassed themselves in the second leg of their UEFA Nations League quarterfinal against Germany, conceding three first-half goals, including one off a corner kick that goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and his teammates were too busy to notice as they argued with each other and the referee.

Spalletti arrived in August 2023 as a sort of savior, picking up the sad remains of the Euro 2020-winning squad that failed to qualify for the World Cup. But he leaves the team in even more peril than he found them. The credit from Spalletti's successful Napoli tenure has long expired. He won only 11 of his 23 games before Monday's qualifier against 154th-ranked Moldova, shoehorning his players into a flat 3-5-2 formation that stripped his side of any spontaneity. He refused to call up Riccardo Orsolini despite ample evidence of the winger's dribbling and scoring prowess and left him on the bench for more than half of Friday's debilitating defeat. Spalletti also alienated veteran center-back Francesco Acerbi after joking about his age. Whether by happenstance or design, Spalletti never once fielded the strongest possible lineup available to him. He didn't treat the job with the diplomacy national team management requires. His stubbornness backfired.

His biggest challenge was to get players who've already been conditioned by their clubs' unique systems to carry out his own specific requests. That's much harder to do as an international manager with small training windows. Spalletti is a club manager at heart and simply didn't have as much time as he'd like to get his team up to speed. The result was either utterly chaotic or sensationally boring. He'd either get a comeback from 3-0 down or a blowout defeat against inferior opposition. Italy couldn't execute any coherent style of play despite having a number of competent players in the side.

But the team is far from complete and lacks the matchday aura its predecessors had in droves. A cursory glance at the starting lineup doesn't send tingles down your spine. Midfielders Sandro Tonali and Nicolo Barella are tough customers, and center-back Alessandro Bastoni is an elegant ball-playing center-back, but the team doesn't have an intimidation factor. It's not like it was when Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta marshaled the back line, or when Andrea Pirlo conducted the orchestra, or when Roberto Baggio occupied the half-spaces and drew all the attention. Italy's squad, as it stands, is full of the same type of midfield runners who can carry the ball from Point A to Point B but don't know where to go next. It's a team of forwards who struggle to score and defenders who forget when to defend. There isn't a single virtuoso who can take charge of any game. It's an Italian team that isn't Italian at all. It has lost the grit and sense of occasion that this great footballing nation had in good times and bad.

Everyone sees it. Former players and coaches know there's something rotten. The problem is that the powers that be and the directors who run the Italian football association (FIGC) have allowed the rot to fester.

It's evident even to those plumbing the depths of the lower tiers. After watching his team secure promotion to Serie B following a pulsating penalty shootout in the Serie C playoff final, Pescara coach Silvio Baldini railed against the cultural decay of the national team.

"The real problem is they're creating a generation of people who no longer know what the Italian flag represents and what it means to wear the blue jersey," Baldini told public broadcaster Rai in an impromptu rant that the interviewer tried and failed to cut short. "The team from 1982 that won with (Gaetano) Scirea, (Marco) Tardelli, (Bruno) Conti, (Francesco) Graziani, (Dino) Zoff, (Fulvio) Collovati, those guys were heroes.

"That was football. Those were people who wore the blue jersey for their coach. If our directors don't understand these things, the crooks will always get ahead."

It's legitimate to wonder whether it has become too normal for Italy to miss out on the World Cup. Forward Giacomo Raspadori was 14 years old the last time Italy played in the tournament. "There are 10-year-old children who have never seen it," he admitted recently. The youngsters who will make up Italy's next generation have no reference point. It's a sad reality and could keep some players from understanding what it truly means to play for Italy at a World Cup.

It's up to the coach and the FIGC to create the right environment. Coach Roberto Mancini and the late Gianluca Vialli managed to do that in the lead-up to Euro 2020, but federation president Gabriele Gravina has mismanaged the program in the years that have followed that victory at Wembley, doing little to establish greater synchronicity between the financially driven clubs that have neglected and priced out Italian talent and the national team that needs them to get more playing time.

Gravina has gone from coach to coach to coach and made no meaningful improvements to the program, or left his successor, should he do the honorable thing and resign, with much of a foundation. In the ultimate display of cowardice, Gravina was reportedly lurking in the hallway as Spalletti announced his own firing to the press. The FIGC is full of these types of would-be politicians who seem more interested in self-preservation than serving any national cause. While the 79-year-old has leveraged his role as FIGC president to land a prominent position on UEFA's executive committee and give Italy greater say on European football affairs — notably playing a key role in securing co-hosting rights for Euro 2032 — he hasn't ramped up youth development, encouraged enough investment in the country's dilapidated stadium infrastructure, or addressed the litany of annual bankruptcies that plague the grassroots level.

This is a national emergency. It's unfortunate Italy's primary stakeholders aren't treating it as such.