This week our columnist Ruth Wishart asks: who better than the Scots to console Italy's football fans after their World Cup agony?

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A NATION mourns.

No, not ours for once. Italy has gone into serial meltdown since its football team managed to get through 180 minutes of World Cup play-offs without troubling the nether regions of the Swedish net.

Perhaps we should be offering them counselling? Who better than the Scots to understand the pain of peering through the window as other teams are safely inside the most high-profile tournament of them all?

One Roman commentator went so far as to say there could be no World Cup without Italy, given that they had been a fixture in the top tier since God was a girl.

Well, as it happens, I have seen the Italian teams in a number of World Cups. I was going to say I have seen them “live”, but that’s not the most apt description of the famed Azzurri.

They are, shall we say, notoriously backward at coming forward. When one of their legends retired this month, most of the clips lauding his peerless ability were of his ability to, ahem, get his opponent off the ball.

They have an excellent goalkeeper, who has probably been to more World Cups than me, and their defence is what usually keeps them alive and certainly kicking.

Frankly, I think the World Cup will survive just fine. What the punters want to see is a bit of swash being buckled, a posse of wingers dribbling past opposing backs, and, not at all incidentally, shed-loads of amazing goals.

Most proper fans would rather see their team lose 4-3 than trudge through a dull 0-0 draw. Such as the one which has just ensured the Bella Italia won’t be featuring at Russia 2018.