One year on from the celebrations at Wembley that appeared to herald a new dawn for Italian football, the country is still taking stock. Italy’s win at Euro 2020 now feels like an oasis in their World Cup desert.
The shock defeat to North Macedonia in March means they will miss another World Cup. When the 2026 tournament begins, it will not only be two decades since Italy won their fourth World Cup, but two decades since they reached its knockout stages.
That demands introspection but there is disagreement about the reasons. The 2018 failure was blamed on the coach. Roberto Mancini falling short is harder to justify. A Jorginho penalty miss here, a freak strike there. Perhaps it could be explained away again.
There is danger is reaching too deeply for answers, but a risk too in shying away from the systemic issues that some believe are holding Italian football back. Nobody ever cracks football forever - there is a constant require to adapt and to evolve.
Germany did that 20 years ago. England overhauled their academy structure and are reaping the benefits of that now with an unusual emergence of talent. Italy may benefit from difficult conversations about whether their system is conducive to that.
A study by Gazzetta dello Sport showed that less than one per cent of the starting line-ups in Serie A included Italians under the age of 21 - with 80 per cent of the minutes they do get coming late in games. Alarmingly, there were similar numbers in Serie B as well.
A report from the CIES football observatory in 2020 showed that, among the top five major leagues in Europe, Atalanta were the only Italian club to rank inside the top 20 when it came to the number of academy players that are graduating to the first team.
Some wonder whether that struggle to bring through young talent is a product of a culture that encourages the wrong type of coaching. "I believe that the problem has always been the system," widely-travelled Italian coach Eugenio Sena tells Sky Sports.
Is that really particular to Italy? "In England, it is about development," says Sena, having worked in both countries. "In Italy, it is more about winning. The coaches sometimes use the players for themselves, looking for the result and not how to improve players.
"When I worked in England, officials would visit. If my way of coaching was shouting and blaming, he would have stopped me. The federation in Italy does not come to visit clubs so the academies do whatever they want and those coaches don't all have their licences."
Many will recoil at the suggestion that Italy has a coaching problem - and be even more reluctant to accept that they can learn from England. As well as Mancini's success at Euro 2020, Carlo Ancelotti just won the Champions League and there is Antonio Conte too.
Coverciano, the home of Italian coaching, remains revered and romanticised. Theses by some of the world's most famous coaches are documented there. But beyond the superstar names, there is a culture of gatekeeping that is stifling the size of the talent pool.
Sena is a useful example. "Since I was 10, my aim was to be a football coach," he says. Born in Sicily, he moved to Milan to study sports science and worked at Inter's academy foundation centre. He then won a scholarship to coach at Debrecen in Hungary.
He went to Australia. Did his UEFA B Licence at 23. He worked in Juventus' academies in China and Russia. There were jobs at Yeovil and Chievo. His UEFA A Licence was achieved in Montenegro while coaching both men's and women's teams there.
It was not wanderlust that took him abroad.
"I had to learn the Montenegrin language to study there because the course was all in that language. It took me 18 months. I went in at 27 and finished at 29. It was very difficult but I knew that if I went there, I could get the chance. It was impossible in Italy.
"In England, if you want to study the UEFA Licences, there are opportunities. In Italy, if you have been a professional football player, you have a high chance. If you haven't been a professional, it is almost impossible. It is a problem in Italy - and only in Italy."
It is ironic when perhaps the most celebrated Italian coach of them all is Arrigo Sacchi. The two-time European Cup winner with AC Milan had once been a shoemaker. "I never realised that to become a jockey you needed to be a horse first," he famously remarked.
Sacchi identified this coaching problem more than a decade ago. "In Italy, they have still not opened up the registrations," he said. "I would let everyone from pharmacists to porters - any person - become a manager." But Coverciano remains exclusive.
The points system used to determine who earns a place on the courses is heavily weighted in favour of former professional players makes it exceedingly awkward for those who are starting from scratch. Sacchi himself was only accepted after five years at Cesena.
"It is very hard to get on the course," says Sena. "The points that you collect to get into the course favours ex-professional players. And I mean any course. It is to keep the same people inside this world. You are not wanted if you did not play professionally."
Some will point to the example of Maurizio Sarri, the former banker who went on to win the Serie A title with Juventus. He is the exception who proves the rule. Achievements with Stia, Cavriglia, Antella, Sansovino and Sangiovannese gained him the opportunities.
"Sarri was allowed to do the course because he had won national league titles," explains Sena. "Doing that gave him the pass to go to the UEFA A licence and coach in the next division. If you don't do that it is impossible and how many coaches can do that?"
There will be those who regard it as entirely natural that former elite players Alessandro Del Piero and Daniele De Rossi were awarded the top marks among the latest exclusive group of Italian coaches selected to complete the UEFA Pro Licence at Coverciano.
Others see it as unlikely that the best players make the best coaches.
And besides, Sena prefers to flip the thinking.
"Better coaches make better players," he says.
"In Italy, there is not an effective recruitment process to find these coaches. If you know the academy director then you will be able to get a job. If you don't know him then you won't. I have never seen a job advertised within the academy for any of the top clubs."
There are those who find a way. Sena recently finished a stint as assistant manager in the top division in Saudi Arabia. "I cannot choose where I work. There was no chance in Italy. I am Italian but now I am a Montenegrin coach, I belong to that federation."
That seems a pity and a problem. For while Italy continues to produce big-name coaches, the fear is that underneath the surface, these self-imposed restrictions are not allowing the depth of qualified coaches to emerge who can develop young talent.
As a result, Italian football might not be the best that it can be.