Italian sport: lions everywhere, except in football

Italian sports fans—at least those without the proverbial slices of ham over their eyes—will certainly have noticed a rather curious coincidence: Italian sport, in this particular historical period, is soaring in a way it has rarely managed before.

At the Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics, the Italian delegation finished fourth in the medal table, nearly matching the number of medals won by a giant like the United States (second behind the untouchable Norway) and leaving well behind other historic winter sports powers such as Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, or Canada.

Thirty medals in total almost look like a university exam grade—passed with top marks. And with top marks, for several years now, the Italian tennis movement has also been graduating at the academy of world tennis. Besides Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti, who are firmly positioned among the top players in the rankings, two other Italian representatives are rapidly approaching the top ten as well: Flavio Cobolli and Luciano Darderi (currently ranked 14th and 18th respectively).

_{Jannik Sinner, The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

The intelligence and planning of the president of the Italian Tennis Federation, Angelo Binaghi, have slowly transformed Italian tennis from a mere supporting actor into a dominant force on the international stage. This is confirmed not only by the emergence of several players, but also by the three consecutive Davis Cup titles won by Italy between 2023 and 2025.

We should not forget other team sports either, such as volleyball, a discipline in which Italy can boast the title of World Champion both in the men's and women's competitions. Or basketball, where the Italian movement continues to produce more and more talents capable of making the national team and club teams competitive in every tournament.

Even in “unthinkable” sports—far removed from the traditional culture of the Belpaese—such as cricket, our athletes are managing to carve out an important space. The Italian national team qualified for the World Cup for the first time last February, even defeating stronger teams like Nepal and competing until the end against England.

_{Rae Allen from Brisbane, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

As if that were not enough, yesterday Italian sport earned another shining symbolic medal: the Italian rugby team managed to defeat England for the first time in its history in the famous “Six Nations” tournament. Foresight and passion, combined with a shared vision for the common good, have accomplished the feat of transforming the Italian rugby team into a real squad—respected, if not feared, even by the world's major powers.

Italy is not only a nation of sports lovers but—allow me to say it with a hint of pride—a nation of genius at every level. A DNA that has distinguished us since the times of Bartolomeo Cristofori and Leonardo da Vinci, passing through Guglielmo Marconi and Alessandro Volta, and reaching more modern times with Federico Faggin’s microchip or Ferrero’s Nutella.

Unfortunately, however, such brilliance often clashes with corruption and with the tendency of part of the country to reach goals quickly through shortcuts that are more or less legal. In this otherwise victorious landscape appears, like a sad counterbalance to a perfect story, the other terrible side of the coin: the world of football.

Unlike the other Italian sports federations, football is not free to grow, but is held hostage by a sort of “clique,” led by the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina, whose main objective—unlike all the others—is not the good of the sport but the protection of the Inter brand, so dear to the “friends of friends,” from every possible trouble.

And so, in the sport most deeply rooted in the country—the one in which not many years ago Italian teams, both national and club sides, dominated the international stage—we now witness a decline that seems to have no end.

No Serie A club is even remotely at the level of the best European teams, and the national team has not qualified for the World Cup for 12 years now, with a real possibility of extending this negative record to sixteen.

The experience of other sports tells us that only a few changes would be needed to turn things around and shine again even in the golden world of football. But that would require dismantling the current system down to the bolts—a system in which many people “eat” and find shelter, including organized crime.

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