At a press conference yesterday, Azzurri coach Antonio Conte dropped some staggering statistics regarding the low number of Italians playing in the Serie A: "My worry ahead of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup is how much things have changed since 2006, when Marcello Lippi won the World Cup," said Conte. "Back then an Italy Coach had the possibility of choosing around 61-62 Italians from every 100 players. Today that choice has dropped to 33 Italians out of 100. "This is a real problem and the biggest danger facing Italy today. It will be difficult for Italy to be competitive if we can only pick 33 per cent of the available players. Those figures mean there is a problem and we have to invert the trend." It's a far cry from when I first started following Italian soccer and all teams were limited to having only three foreign players on the field at one time (it was that way for all European teams). I knew England was in poor shape in this department, but I didn't think Italy was so bad off. However, I see they're now practically in the same boat.
It's really getting out of hand, until this issue is addressed we'll continue to have a mediocre national team.
Leave the EZ go back to previous labour laws. Problem solved. In the absence of that happening strictly ensuring FFP is enforced might help at present.
How many top Dutch, Argentinians, Brazilians etc play in their local league? It's an issue for the national league but has little to do with the performance of the Azzurri.
Well the problem is that most of our youth with prospective talent either rides the bench or has no interest from other foreign and domestic clubs. Remember that most Italian players even with great talent stay in Italy. In my opinion one of the biggest reasons that Italy has been successful in the past is due to most of the players staying in Italy, what better way to form chemistry than joining with players that you play with or against on a regular basis?
They became top players by playing in their local leagues b4 they headed abroad. Italians are not getting that same opportunity to develop and more realise their potential.
Well, the way things stand it's only the number of non-EU players can be addressed, although I won't be surprised if we see further restrictions on them in the near future.
another problem is the double standard between the south american leagues and UEFA leagues I'm pretty sure in South America they strictly limit the amount of foreigners ( either people born outside south america or even respective country in SA or both ) allowed to play on each team in their respective leagues. Again I'm not too sure what qualifies as a foreigner say in Brazil or Argentina, but I do know for a fact there are strict regulations on players born outside south america. In Fact in the Brazilian Serie A you may still even be considered foreign even if born in South America but not born in Brazil and the same may hold true for the Argentinian Primera.... I don't know exactly what the rules are so if someone could enlighten me please do but I do know traditionally they are not open to people born outside their countries/SA playing on their teams the way we are in UEFA Imagine if prospective UEFA players could go seek their trade on top South American teams in Brazil and Argentina the way tons of them are freely able to do in Europe??.....
I don't think it's a "double standard" though. Just a very different situation. i.e. Not many people want to play or live in South America. Also, population wise, they have a massive talent pool to chose from. Europe though, is the "big league" where 6 billion people want to play...while the local talent pool is very small. In competition terms, this means that teams who can get the best foreigners will win more. So basically, any foreigner limit would have to be agreed upon by all the big leagues... to make it fair.
I understand many foreign UEFA players , especially top foreign UEFA players, don't want to play in south america because of the financial disincentives and living situation but what about the young prospective UEFA talents who are rotting away on the bench and aren't making much money anyway. Again we are talking about uefa prospects who aren't playing and aren't making much, not young players who still stand to make much more even if rotting away on the bench like in England etc. Surely top CONMEBOL sides in Brazil and Argentina can more or less match the wages they were making already considering they are young and not playing and if they can do that then why wouldn't young UEFA prospects take the opportunity to get valuable playing time and refine their skills in a quality squad? I mean we aren't talking about MLS quality here, the Argentina Primera and Brazilian Serie A have some of the best sides outside of Europe and IMO better than Mexico and far better than the U.S. Also as far as living standards go these young players naturally would be better off than 90% and would live in the better parts of Brazil and Argentina so I don't think they would have to worry about that either. It's not like were living the lives of Kings in Europe before that with minimal wages. I know you said in Brazil and Argentina they have a sea of their own players to chose from but let's say CONMEBOL leagues allowed foreigners the way UEFA does? Don't you think in that situation top Brazilian/Argentinian squads would start sniffing their noses into Europe to bolster their squads if they could afford the transfer fee and wages? I think one of the main reasons they don't is because of the rules they have regarding foreign players in their leagues. Again we're only talking about young prospects already not making much and not playing.....and only if these leagues had different policies on foreigner players....I've always wondered this but don't know all the details? I understand everyone wants to play in Europe but when that's not possible sometimes playing elsewhere refining your skills and getting valuable time , especially on quality sides in south america, doesn't seem like a bad alternative if the opportunity was there. What is funny though is that many young prospective Argentine and Brazilian players get the opportunity to play in their local leagues refining their skills and getting lots of playing time to later be seen by European squads and play there.....the same doesn't hold true for many young European players playing in their respective leagues and the irony in the end is that many of these SA players are of equal or lesser caliber than their European counterparts not playing. Thoughts? Insight? @krado33 @totti fan @Calcio Pauly
Alot of the south Americans who start in their local leagues as youngins end up retiring or going back to south America after they have burnt themselves out in Europe. Case in point almost every Brazilian or Argentine player ever
The draw for Europe IMO is the pay day and the opportunity to eventually or straight away play in the best competition in the world, for me and many others that is the Champions league.
yeah I believe even the great Ronaldo , Rivaldo, Adriano etc ended up back in South America.....Osvaldo was just on loan with Boca my point was that young south american prospects are given plenty of time to play and develop in their respective leagues so much so that big euro clubs take notice and sign them, where as the same doesn't hold true for many young european players. This especially being true in Italy with the irony, I mentioned before, being that many euro squads, especially in Italy, are bringing in talent that's no really better because of the financial plus for them. My point.....Even if many of these SA players end up getting burnt out they still are provided with much more opportunity compared to their European ( Italian etc ) counterparts
I believe once a club invests in a prospect their incentive to develop and sell for profit is priority. The Palermo and Udinese model essentially, so ya they're going to get the chance to do exactly that. Baggio had a plan to help develop local talent but it cut into that model somewhat and was never even considered, so he resigned. Foreign players, apparently, are cheaper to buy so there's definitely a financial incentive.
yeah Baggio got pissed during a demonstration and basically walked out you think the reforms that are supposed to take effect by the 2016-17 year are A) going to happen? and B) going to work? From what I remember by that year clubs have to reduce teams to 25 and must include 4 players from the youth system and 4 who grew up in Italy. Though I can't see how this is possible considering there are many clubs in Serie A at the moment that have NO PLAYERS from their youth systems on theirs squads currently Also there is talk about reducing Serie A from 20 to 18 teams. I don't know if that's part of the reform or just talk at the moment but it should have been done a long time ago
But another problem in that regard is that nowadays even the youth systems of Serie A teams have a significant amount of foreigners in them (and I imagine it's the case for many Serie B teams as well). There are loads of Eastern Europeans, as well as Africans, in many Primavera rosters, which was never the case in the past. It's something Arrigo Sacchi complained about a few months ago, and although he chose his words poorly, he still made a good point.
It just isn't going to change. Forcing a quota in Italy would give the advantage to other leagues in terms of foreigners. They then get more cash flow, international appeal and their leagues grow more powerful. Notice none of the top teams in Europe have majority local players anymore. Even Barca is back down to 3-4 Spanish players -- none of them key. The only way to do something is for the EU or EUFA to bring in something that applies to everyone... and good luck to that happening. --- On the other hand though, there must be advantages to our youth in being tested against the best youth from around the world. We're still producing quality players (relative to other European nations)... but some poor coaching has made us look worse than we are internationally.
I hope Conte's not watching the International Champions Cup right now, because Fiorentina is playing PSG with only one Italian (Nicolò Fazzi) in their entire starting line-up...
wow really? unter going the same route, the only italian they really play is prnacchia who as we all know is a whopping turd
they tried to get rid of santon though didnt they? still, imagine if all team had only 1-3 italian players in it
Look closely at the rosters from last season of teams like Inter, Fiorentina, Napoli, Udinese, Lazio etc. 1-3 Italians is what their starting rosters looked like.