“I’m sorry,” he said, adding, “We failed at something that also means something on a social level.”

The coach of Italy, Gian Piero Ventura, whose job looks precarious with officials and most of the country already calling for his head, reflected what many see as a national allergy to accountability. “The apocalypse is not a child only of tonight,” he said after the game, declining to resign.

As Italian websites exploded with Ikea-inspired Sweden jokes, including step-by-step instructions for Italians on how to make a “göl,” some politicians tried to exploit the frustration.

Image Italian newspapers on Tuesday reflected the dismay at the national team’s failure. “Apocalypse,” “National shame,” and, simply, “End” were among the headlines. Credit... Beatrice Larco/Associated Press

“Too many foreigners on the field,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, wrote on Twitter. “#StopInvasion, and more space for Italian guys, also on the soccer field.”

Financial analysts projected a loss of revenue to the national team of 100 million euros, or about $116 million, because of the failure to qualify for the World Cup.

“There will be economic consequences to this defeat,” Elisa Simoni, a left-leaning member of Parliament, told the news channel Sky TG24. Others suggested that Italy’s victory at the World Cup in 2006 had contributed to a spike in employment and in the country’s gross domestic product.

Those days now seem far away.

In a video, Alessandro Vocalelli, the editor of Corriere dello Sport, said that the failure would create a new description for national humiliation: “It was ‘a Sweden.’ ” The failure to qualify, he said, was “a national shame without precedent.”