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#1 Italy
Italy missing from the World Cup, is no doubt, the biggest shock. They had previously only missed the 1958 edition of the tournament, which, ironically, took place in Sweden. The Swedes, this time, were the side that denied the Italians the World Cup ticket by beating them in the playoffs 1-0 on aggregate.
The failure could end up being a positive thing for the four-time World Champions, though. Much like the Netherlands, they have relied on older players for quite a while and there hasn't been much success for them. They did play in the EURO 2012 final, but it was seen a surprise, which says a lot about the current state of Italian football.
Italy hasn't even made it past the group stage in the last couple of World Cups, finishing without a single win as the defending champions in 2010 and ending up 3rd behind Costa Rica and Uruguay in 2014.
It's certainly a catastrophe for Italy to be missing the 2018 World Cup, but we can be sure that they will come back stronger in the future as a result. In Gianluigi Donnarumma, they already have a readymade replacement for Gianluigi Buffon in goal and there's some exciting talent coming up among the outfield players as well.
Italy has made it into at least the semi-finals in two of the last three U21 European Championships and the U19's were runners-up in 2016. They won bronze at the U20 World Cup this summer. While they're bound to be shattered, the future is nothing short of promising for the Dutch.
