Capello: Italy has been imitating Guardiola for 15 years without having enough quality

It will be 20 years at the earliest from when Italy lifted the World Cup in Germany in 2006, to when they will next have the chance to partake in a knockout match in the tournament, and Fabio Capello believes that trying to copy Pep Guardiola's style has cost the Azzurri.

Despite a wonderful victory in Euro 2020, in which the Italian side beat England on penalties in the final, Italy lost to North Macedonia on Thursday which eliminated them from the 2022 World Cup, before qualifying was even over.

The 2022 tournament will be the second successive World Cup that Italy has missed completely, whilst their performances in South Africa and Brazil in 2010 and 2014 respectively were so lacklustre, they failed to progress out of the group stages.

"The explanation is very simple, I have been saying for a long time that we are copying Guardiola's football from 15 years ago without having sufficient quality," Capello explained to Sky Sport Italia.

"Physically, Macedonia were superior to us in terms of dynamism, strength and determination.

"Everything is clear, even that we understand that the model to copy is the German one, we're not going to grow if we do like the Spanish, who have a superior technique, we will never be able to."