The travelling Welshmen knew exactly what they wanted from their weekend in Italy. Spying the journalist's tools their parting shot as they left Bologna airport on Friday was: "Make sure Monday's headline reads `Gould Must Go'." "What, even if they win?" I responded.
"Especially if they win." Those who follow Wales had made up their mind about their manager some time ago. As another routine pasting took shape and the predictable chorus for his head rose up from a tiny corner of this vast stadium, they could not have dreamed their wish would be delivered so quickly.
Gould could sense a more painful backlash looming and decided it would be of no help to a team which in two days' time has an assignment with the Danes at Anfield, that could be crucial to their dwindling hopes of seizing a play-off place for the European Championship finals.
Immediately after Saturday's game he chose to stand down. "It's a decision I have taken for the best interests of Welsh football," he said. "I badly want them `the players' to qualify but I don't think they can do it with me," he said.
There was an unmistakeable sense of relief because the last four years have taken a heavy toll on the 52-year-old Englishman who can never be accused of lacking heart or honesty.
To Neville Southall and Mark Hughes goes the task of lifting morale. David Collins, secretary-general of the FAW, stressed that their appointment - on Gould's recommendation - was for one match only and it is hard to believe his committee doesn't have alternative candidates in mind.
For entertainment value the Gould years will be hard to beat. Amid the jokes - the next controversy was always around the corner. Whether it was sharing differences with senior players, his race row with Nathan Blake or the public humiliation of Robbie Savage after his staged show of contempt for the Italian jersey, the newspapers lapped it up.
But none of this would endear him to his squad or the Welsh public. Not while the team were compiling a portfolio of spectacular defeats in which the 7-1 capitulation in Holland and the 6-4 reverse in Turkey stand out.
He was badly in need of a strong right-hand man, well-versed in international affairs (a Don Howe or a Peter Shreeves), but instead surrounded himself with those also lacking experience at the highest level.
When Welsh rockers the Manic Street Preachers changed the words of their anthem "Everything must go" to "Bobby Gould must go" and some 20,000 concert-goers sang along, it established a mandate for change that surprise back-to-back wins over Denmark and Belarus last autumn could only temporarily disguise.
His team were back to their bad old defensive ways in Switzerland in March and again in the Stadio Dall' Ara where Christian Vieri and Filippo Inzaghi wrought havoc and instigated this victory stroll for the Italians.
Of course, that was always likely to be the outcome when faced with a much-changed defence drawn almost exclusively from the First Division, even with Paul Jones's excellence between the posts.
Whatever else he did wrong, Gould could not be blamed for the paucity of the talent available to him.
Italy (4-4-2): Buffon; Panucci, Negro, Cannavaro, Maldini; Fuser (Di Livio,69), Conte, Albertini, di Francesco; Inzaghi (Chiesa, 80), Vieri (Montella, 46).
Wales (3-5-2): Jones; Page, Melville, Williams; Robinson (Jenkins, 78), Bellamy (Pembridge, 79), Hughes, Speed, Barnard; Saunders (Hartson, 46), Giggs.
Referee: E Steinborn (Germany).
