It's finally official. Starting next season (2018/2019), Serie A teams will be allowed to register a "B Team" in Lega Pro (Serie C). Teams can earn promotion all the way to Serie B, but are not allowed to compete in a league in which their first team plays. (so in the case of a team like Hellas Verona, they'll be in B next season, if they start a team and it wins promotion and Hellas is still in B, they have to stay in their current league. The same structure they use in Spain.)
It's a great way of developing players and has worked extremely well in Spain. Instead of sending younger players out on loan, you keep them within the organization, they train with Juve, the first team gets to keep tabs on them directly.
More importantly they play in Pro leagues with pro teams and pro players and pro fields and not shitty Primavera mickey mouse league!
Typical Italians, everyone protecting their turf .... https://www.football-italia.net/121126/confusion-over-b-teams-plan
“Serie A clubs can ask to register their second team in the Lega Pro,” Costacurta confirmed today. “The B teams will be composed of Under-21 players, with the opportunity to introduce two under-23s outside of the quota. “Any second team that a Serie A club decides to register will play in the Lega Pro, and will take the place of a club that doesn’t register.
So will they have roster flexibility? Can we send players in and out of the reserve team will they be stuck where they re registered?
Details have yet to be worked out but my guess is that player movement will not be allowed outside of the usual transfer windows.
Hmmm....I suppose if we stock the team exclusively with players we would have loaned out, that will work. But if we start sticking our youth players on there, then we will have a hard time getting fill-ins when we need them if we get a lot of injuries like we have the last 2 seasons.
So what happens to the current Serie C teams when these new teams come? If lets say 5 teams wanted to register B teams, do they kick out other teams to lower division?
No, but there's always a change in teams, many times teams can't re-register because they become insolvent, or other things, they will take their spots, or they will simply expand the league by a couple teams.
Some more info on the B teams... 19/23 players will be U21, at least 16 grown in Italy (7 seasons in FIGC leagues). Second teams can be promoted, but not play in the same league as the first one or go to Serie D
More: https://www.football-italia.net/121207/figc-announce-b-team-rules It is unclear what the pecking order will be if there aren't enough slots to go around to all teams who want a B team. Some Key points: "... At least 16 of the players must be registered with a club affiliated with the FIGC for at least seven sporting seasons, which means limiting the number of imports. Players can move between parent and B Team clubs, but if they have at least five appearances for the first team, they won’t be allowed back into the B Team...."
Well....maybe NOT. Serie B apoplectic: https://www.football-italia.net/121212/lega-b-demand-b-team-rule-change
If this does go through, I'm curious to see how they will determine which teams will the first say in registering their "B teams".
I'm going to be blunt: f*ck 'em. Italian football needs professional B teams. It makes absolutely no sense to have players in their late teens and early twenties rotting in the primaveras. Talent development will continue to stagnate, just as it has for years in England with their reserve system. It won't happen overnight, but eventually Italian football will experience a resurgence once the talent developed in B teams comes to fruition. Case and point: Spain. Italy simply does not have the kind of competitive talent pool keep up not only with them, but with the likes of Germany and France as well.
They have a good point tho, why should all of the smaller teams get punished by having to compete with the Serie A little brother clubs? Players in Serie B will naturally prefer to play with the reserve teams and this hurts the smaller city clubs. Having b teams is not going to help the national team at all, the teams will feature as many foreign cheap prospects as possible who will get to start instead of the italians. This is all on the coaches and front office who dont believe young italians can handle starting at a young age. Cutrone is an example of what happens when you give a kid a shot. Berna only started 7 games this year, with 15 subs.... he knocked in 5 goals and 6 assists in that time. Last year Berna started 32 games and had 13 goals and 5 assists.... Max opted for Juan instead who got the largest chunk of games... if he didnt get injured, Max may not have played him. Rugani is another example. The big clubs dont favor italians and very few get first choice selection if they are young. England is going thru this now because those clubs do the same with their youth. Cristante started all year and had a great year with 12 goals and 3 assists, but he would not start at Juve.
It's always a good idea for people to actually read what the B team's rules will be before making false claims, this goes for Serie B as well.
Former Perugia and Empoli coaches Federico Giunti and Vincenzo Vivarini are the main targets to take the managerial role of the Juventus B team in Serie C.
Juventus are one of the 6 teams who are in agreement to postponement the B teams inclusion in the Serie C until the 2019/20 season.
Y Yet, people are raving about the youth that is on this current England team playing in the World Cup. Kane, Dele Alli, Sterling, Dier, Trippier, Pickford, Rashford, Stones. They have a very young team with those guys mainly playing at the big clubs in England. Additionally, as stated by Dante, it's going to require 16 of the players to have played 7 years in FIGC leagues...
Mattia Del Favero will be the starting goalkeeper for the Juventus B team if they go ahead with them this fall.
Former Virtus Entella coach Alfredo Aglietti could be the coach of the Juventus B team, who will play in the Serie C this season.
Juve, Milan and Torino will launch their B teams in the Serie C this year. Mauro Zironelli will coach the Juventus B team. He previously coached Mestre in 2016-2017 and got them promoted form Serie D to Serie C. He was set to coach Bari in Serie B this season, but the club went bankrupt and Juve swooped in to sign him.
Here's a list of players which consists of those who are definitely going to be part of the team, those that are in doubt of making it andthe club's target signings for the team.