It has been going on for decades and South Africa was no exception. Extend sports life to a generation world champion It does not turn out profitable. In the last 26 years, in which seven World Cups have been played, only Brazil has been able to dignify the longevity of a champion team: after win the World Cups in the United States 1994 and Korea and Japan 2002, managed to overcome the first round of the World Cup four years later. The other four champions since then (France in 1998, Italy in 2006, Spain in 2010 and Germany in 2014) they were eliminated in the group stage when they had to defend their crown. Then came the forced regenerations after not knowing how to give a worthy end to these legendary teams, whose last image they left in a World Cup was that of four groups of finished footballers.
For Italy, used to going from less to more, flirting with the elimination in 2010 in a group in which it wasn Slovakia, Paraguay and New Zealand it seemed to be inside the script. A stroke of luck in the last game would see them in the round of 16 and from there it would be an almost unstoppable team. And it was about to be like that. Yes Pepe, a clear example of the level of azzurra in South Africa, would have been born with a left leg and would not have sent a very clear goal goal in the 95 'in limbo against the Slovaks, Italy would have faced Holland in the round of 16, and from there, who knows that the World Cup would have brought us. But this time, the coin came out tails and the World champion left without winning a single match.