Italian Scandal: Worse than expected

That's the comment from the person just appointed to head Italian soccer. According to this article, he also said that he thought the national team "could avoid being dragged into the scandal and stay focused on the World Cup, which starts next week in Germany." I suppose on the one hand you want to play the Italians at their best in order to see where you stand in relation to one of Europe's traditional top teams. But on the other hand, making it through the group stage is significantly more important for US soccer than for the Italians: if we don't make it out, I fear that the soccer-know-nothings in the US (and especially in sports media) would deem a third or fourth place finish to continue running down soccer in the US, regardless of the actual performance of the team. For the Italians, if they don't make it out, they can blame it on the soccer scandal, an already made excuse!