
XtraTime Web Desk: The FIFA World Cup in Russia will no doubt be an extremely exciting affair for the football lovers across the globe. But the event would certainly miss some of the biggest football playing nations in the World Cup history. Here goes the top four nations whom Russia will miss the most.

The last time Italy missed a World Cup before this was in 1958. The Azzurri first missed out on automatic qualification after finishing second in UEFA’s Group G behind Spain. A failure to defeat Spain in both their group fixtures as well as a shock draw to Macedonia at home saw them eventually finish five points behind La Furia Roja. They did make it to the playoffs as one of the best eight group runners-up but lost 1-0 over two legs to Sweden, thus bringing the curtains down on what was an inconsistent qualifying campaign. The 0-3 loss in Madrid brought out the inadequacies of coach Gian Piero Ventura and his stubborn adherence to his old-school tactical creed didn’t help.

Chile’s best World Cup show was when they hosted it in 1962 where they finished third. However, they remained inconsistent after that.The last two editions, in 2010 and 2014, saw them make it to the Round of 16, which was a marked improvement. In the qualifiers, they were on course needing 4 points from their last 4 games. They lost all 4 matches with Alexis Sanchez having a below-par run.


0 comments:
Post a Comment