The early exit of defending champion Italy in the World Cup left this football-crazed nation Thursday in shock and anger.

Italy lost 3-2 to Slovakia in a crucial group match. The world champions failed to win a single match during their disastrous campaign, having previously drawn with Paraguay and New Zealand.

"Azzurri, Farewell to the World Cup," said the online editions of Corriere della Sera, the country's largest newspaper.

"Going Home in Shame," said Gazzetta dello Sport.

It was only the third time Italy had exited at group stage.

Even though expectations were low for a team that was seen as old and slow, few in Italy would have predicted such a fiasco in a group widely considered the competition's easiest. But the Azzurri finished last in their group, for the first time in Italy's World Cup history.

"It was pure sadness," a fan, 37-year-old Francesco Faggella, commented minutes after the match.

"We expected the worst - but not like this," said Michela Raico, a 29-year-old who watched the game in her ice-cream parlour near the Pantheon in Rome.

Flag-waving supporters who had gathered in a Rome park to watch the match on giant screens covered their faces as Slovakia's goals piled up, others stared at the screens in disbelief. Some left, their heads down, before the end of the match.

In downtown Milan, people poured out of pubs after the game and walked home in shock - a scene in sharp contrast with the images of fans celebrating the World Cup triumph four years before.

On Facebook, some fans vented their frustration at coach Marcello Lippi and his controversial choices, while others lashed out at players for a listless, uninspired showing.

"We deserved to be eliminated," said Francesco Mongiovi, working at a coffee bar in downtown Rome. "The first two games we played badly, and the third one was disastrous."

La Repubblica wrote that "it's worse than with Korea," recalling the shock exit at the hands of North Korea at the group stage in 1966. The other early exit occurred in 1974.

The team had been under fire long before the final whistle, amid widespread skepticism over Lippi's selection of players. As is often the case in Italy, the debate was not limited to football pundits.

Members of the maverick Northern League party suggested the players were overpaid, and the party's radio drew rebuke when it rooted for Paraguay in Italy's opening game. The party is known for its anti establishment rhetoric and its call for greater autonomy for Italy's wealthy north from Rome's center of powers.

On Thursday, the League wasted no time.

"A shameful performance," said League senator Piergiorgio Stiffoni.

He compared Lippi to Raymond Domenech, the disgraced French coach whose team also exited the World Cup in shame.

"Much arrogance and nothing more!" he said.

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