Rule one of Italian football is that whenever Italy are due to compete in a major tournament, a big scandal will break in the previous six months.

IT may have been unmissable in Manchester but it was ‘unwatchable’ in Rome, at least according to the front page headline in Il Messaggero, the capital’s daily paper, as Italy woke up to its heaviest defeat in nearly 40 years of international football.

FIRST the feast, now the reckoning.