Italy

Four World Cup titles. Legends like Zoff, Maldini, Pirlo, Totti. Blue shirts that once made entire nations hold their breath. Italy are not just a football team — they are a religion, and for two consecutive World Cups, the church was empty. Missing both Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 felt less like sporting failure and more like a bereavement, the kind that leaves a country staring at the television in November wondering what went wrong. This is the wound that 2026 is supposed to heal.

The Azzurri have always been more than a sum of their parts. They defend like it costs them nothing, they suffer beautifully, and then — just when you think they're done — they find something. That DNA doesn't disappear. Under a rebuilt squad with genuine hunger and point-to-prove energy running through every training session, there's a feeling that the exile sharpened them rather than softened them. They've stopped mourning and started marching.

Federico Chiesa brings electric wing play and the kind of directness that unlocks tight defences on the biggest stages. Sandro Tonali — back from his ban and burning with redemption energy of his own — gives them steel and vision in the engine room. And Gianluca Scamacca, physical and technically gifted, is the focal point they lacked for so long. Eight years in the wilderness. The Azzurri are back, and they are seriously hungry.