Italy's World Cup campaign ended in sadly familiar style on Wednesday with bickering and recriminations against the referee, yet it was a general lack of quality,­ especially­ in attack, which ultimately caused their downfall.

Coach Cesare Prandelli offered some frank criticism on the state of Italian soccer­ as he announced his resignation immediately after the 1-0 defeat against Uruguay, which condemned the four-time champions to a second successive group stage elimination.

Stalwarts Gianluigi Buffon and Daniele­ de Rossi also admitted that Italy were simply not good enough and both made references to players not pulling their weight, which the media interpreted as being aimed at maverick striker Mario Balotelli.

"There have been elements which influenced the result such as the heat and the negative refereeing, but we must not resort to [blaming] these," De Rossi told Italian media after the game in steamy Natal.­ "We need real men, not Panini stickers­ or characters."

That comment seemed to be a reference to Balotelli who filled a Panini album with stickers of himself after scoring in the 2-1 win over England and posted a photograph of it on his Facebook page.

After beating England, Italy suffered 1-0 defeats to Costa Rica and Uruguay and their tally of two goals was their lowest since 1966 when they were eliminated by North Korea in a national humiliation.

"It's a day of failure," said Buffon. "We started well, maybe expectations were raised too high after the first win. But we have hit a sad reality, a team that has not scored a goal in the last two games and created very little and deserved to go out."

Although Prandelli was angry at the referee for sending off Claudio Marchisio in the second half, he seemed more upset about a lack of support back home.

Apart from his goal against England, Balotelli offered little threat while Antonio Cassano, included at the last minute after an impressive season with Parma, was way off the pace.

Prandelli may have regretted not selecting Fiorentina's Giuseppe Rossi, arguably Italy's sharpest and most prolific striker, after he was judged to have not recovered sufficiently from knee surgery.

Amid the shock of Prandelli's resignation and the controversy over the incident in which Luis Suarez bit  Giorgio Chiellini, it was almost forgotten that the game also marked the end of Andrea Pirlo's international career.