The Italy national football team (Italian: Nazionale di calcio dell'Italia), represents Italy in association football and is controlled by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the governing body for football in Italy. Italy is the second most successful national team in the history of the World Cup behind Brazil, having won four titles (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006). They have also won one European championship (1968), one Olympic football tournament (1936) and two Central European International Cups.
The traditional colour of the national team (as well as all Italian national teams and athletes officially representing Italy) is azure blue (azzurro, in Italian), due to the "Azzurro Savoia" (Savoy Blue), the colour traditionally linked to the royal dynasty which unified Italy in 1861, and maintained in the official standard of the Italian President.
The team does not have a designated "home stadium" like certain national teams. The primary training ground is at the FIGC headquarters in Coverciano, Florence and the team plays their home matches at various stadiums throughout Italy.
Read more about Italy National Football Team: Historical Kits, Coaches, Recent Results and Forthcoming Fixtures, Head-to-Head Records Against Other Countries
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“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”
—Orson Welles (1915–84)
“...I have wanted to believe people could make their dreams come true ... that problems could be solved. However, this is a national illness. As Americans, we believe all problems can be solved, that all questions have answers.”
—Kristin Hunter (b. 1931)
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Romeo. I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio. And so did I.
Romeo. Well, what was yours?
Mercutio. That dreamers often lie.
Romeo. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mercutio. O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)