Baby steps. This is the first time Canada has made it to the WC in over 30 years.

I wrote most of it so yes

I don’t think it’s true that Germany was more unified. Bavaria is very different culturally and religiously than Schleswig Holstein. The difference I think was that Germany industrialized pretty evenly across the board, whereas industrialization in Italy initially only took off in Lombardy and the north, leaving the South to languish in poverty as it was mostly agrarian. Even today the south of Italy is much less industrialized than the north.

There was not such a pronounced wealth gap in Germany between regions until the East-West division during the Cold War.