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The last time four-time world champions Italy didn't reach the World Cup finals were way back in 1958, when Elvis Presley was still in the American Army, the Munich Air Disaster devastated the footballing world and Prince was born.

Unsurprisingly, their failure to qualify this year has lead to an outpouring of shock , tears and, of course, mockery online.

Italy came second in their qualifying group and their defeat by Sweden over two legs was a bona-fide upset given Italy's four World-Cups versus Sweden's zero.

To be fair to our Italian friends, they were in Pot 2 for the World Cup qualifiers, so ended up in the same group as the imperious Spain who are beginning to look like the team that swept all aside between 2008 and 2012.

(Image: Reuters) (Image: REUTERS)

So how did Italy, four-time world champions, Euro 2012 runners up, end up in Pot 2?

The answer is the same man responsible for Portugal's unlikely Euro 2016 win.....Swansea reject Eder , vanquisher of France , winner of finals.

Eder, who has amassed a strange cult-following online after his heroics in Euro 2016, scored the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Italy for Portugal in a 2015 friendly. The defeat knocked Italy down into Pot 2 to be replaced by, erm, the mighty Romania.

(Image: AFP)

The rest, as they say, is history.

Eder, the man who moved to Portugal when he was two years old, who didn't really grow up with parents as a child, who won Euro 2016 for Portugal can now add to his list of achievements that he was responsible for Italy's failure to qualify which doesn't in any way require a long-winded or complicated explanation.