The big loss against Spain last Saturday still hurts. The hypothesis of Italy playing the play-off game is now really concrete, more than ever. A tough situation, but FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio, who's spoken to Ansa, still is positive: "The hypothesis Italy misses the World Cup would be terrible. But we'll go to Russia. If the contrary would happen, we'd do everything we could to protect the federal interests".
He continues by saying "we've extended Ventura's contract to give him the ability to confront the players and some prestige. We've told him this morning once more that we still trust him, he must do what he has to do and I hope he'll do it well. The Ventura project goes from way back and it's an important project. Before the game against Spain everyone was happy about the work with youngsters, now that's what's difficult. We'll value the situation when it's the right time and we'll do it with Ulivieri and Ventura but I can't say that right now".
The FIGC president also comments the decision to put Italy and Spain in the same group: "I've talked about the ranking related matters to the UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, and to the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, arguing the fact it's not possible not consider Italy's four World Cup wins. It's against our history. Work will be done in that purpose soon".
