Italy have sacked Coach Gian Piero Ventura following their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.<\/p>\n
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The Italian Football Federation announced in a statement on Wednesday night that the 69-year-old’s 16-month reign was over.<\/p>\n
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Italy lost their play-off for a place in Russia next summer 1-0 on aggregate to Sweden, the first time since 1958 the Azzurri have failed to qualify for a World Cup.<\/p>\n
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The Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio said the decision to dismiss Ventura was taken at a meeting called by FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio.<\/p>\n
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The move was widely expected following Italy’s goalless draw with Sweden in Milan on Monday.<\/p>\n
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Ventura, who had been under contract until 2020, declined to resign in the immediate aftermath of the match, but the FIGC has now taken the decision out of his hands.<\/p>\n
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He labelled the outcome of the play-off a “terrible result” and apologised to the Italian supporters.<\/p>\n
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Ventura, a journeyman coach who had most recently spent five years in charge of Torino, took over from Antonio Conte as national team boss following their penalty shoot-out defeat to Germany in the quarter-finals of Euro 2016.<\/p>\n
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He had to get the better of Spain to secure automatic qualification for the World Cup, though, a task which proved too tough as Italy finished the group five points behind their rivals.<\/p>\n
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But it is the two games against Sweden, a side ranked 10 places below Italy, which have cost him his job.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italy have sacked Coach Gian Piero Ventura following their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. The Italian Football Federation announced in a statement on Wednesday night that the 69-year-old’s 16-month reign was over. Italy lost their play-off for a place in Russia next summer 1-0 on aggregate to Sweden, the first time since 1958 the Azzurri have failed to qualify for a World Cup. The Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio said the decision to dismiss Ventura was taken at a meeting called by FIGC president Carlo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11924,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions\/11924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}