I think everyone would agree calcio is a young man's game. It's why Barella was more effective 3 years ago than he is now. Ask yourself how well Serie A clubs are at developing and nurturing their own talent. Football Observatory has an interesting stat. % of minutes played in the league by players nurtured at their current club (must have played 3 or more years with their club between the ages of 15-21). Serie A is a lowly 5.5% ranking 47th out of 50 leagues in the world! Spain is at over 16% When you fail to develop your own talent, you are constantly looking for cheap deals elsewhere and they aren't always young players. If I were running an Italian club, the first thing I would tell the owner is to give me money towards the scouting department. Scour the damn country from far and wide and build a youth system. Get them good facilities and good coaching which prioritizes skill and speed. These fckin moron owners do no such thing. There is no investment in the youth sector and it shows.
The problem with youth is that Serie A is not rich enough to get the best players in the world that the top Prem clubs and PSG Bayern Real will go for but are not poor enough to be forced to play youth the way most leagues in the world are. Spain is the outlier in the top leagues because of programs like Athetic Bilbao and in general the smaller teams have very small transfer budgets and instead play domestic players. The national team would almost be better off if Serie A was actually worse than it is as we see with Portugal France Belgium Netherlands even Croatia having a place for their players to play trumps having a top class domestic league for the sake of their national team. Serie B is 90% Italians and still managers prefer playing 28-34 year olds that know the league. It's very tough. The focus is too much on the day to day results they need to be forced.
This is a fair point. When we were the richest league in the world in the 90s, we spent money on foreigners but they were TOP CLASS. Bosman ruling ********ED US in 1995. I knew it would. Until then Italian clubs had to invest in youth because they had to field Italian teams. Now, they don't give a shit. We need more Juve Stabia and Mantovas in Serie B. These are teams almost entirely Italian and YOUNG.
Call me crazy,I still think the best chance for Italians to develop is within the Italian football system itself. It needs a reset in mentality and a reinvestment. And a commitment to play Italians, and let them be Italian through good and bad! S***...take the last 55 years, the majority of Italians always have and always will be meant to play at home...really? Italians are magically going to start thriving in England, Spain, Germany by the bundles? It's just not going to happen. The continued destruction of the league b/c investment into cheap foreigners and young Italians not playing or being forced to leave early will destroy any semblance of what he Azzurri ever was. We are living it right now...we're seeing it unfold And wanting to just push our own away will kill us off for good. We aren't going to become a Croatia or a Portugal that way. We aren't meant to become those nations who haven't won s***. B/c as popular as they are...they have won s***. Portugal and Croatia at the end of the day are s***. For some reason they are glorified....WE"RE THE WINNERS NOT THEM. We're meant to develop and thrive at home like we always have and win like we always have. the majority of Italians have and always will thrive best in their own land in their own league. The faster we get to playing the majority of Italians on all teams in our own league and in our own style...OUR OWN IDENTITY...then Nazionale will thrive again. There is room in football to play different ways...we don't need to be like everyone else...we need to be like ourselves again... f'n Italians are always trying to be anything but Italian...started with their gd obsession with the dutch in the early 90s
🚨Marco Verratti (confirmed) is ruled OUT for the World Cup Playoffs due to a torn meniscus. He underwent surgery❌Nicolo Zaniolo will NOT be called❌Davide Frattesi remains in DOUBT🥶Marco Palestra & Niccolo Pisilli will BOTH be called up by Gennaro Gattuso✅@DiMarzio pic.twitter.com/usxydHlrop— AzzurriXtra🇮🇹 (@XtraAzzurri) March 13, 2026
At this point I'm just looking at it like our World Cup starts next week we have to win two knockouts against teams that are better than what a lot of teams will face in their groups but at the same time are teams that if we can't beat we obviously don't deserve to go further. More than anything I just want the psychological burden of a world cup playoff to be taken away so we can have something of a clean slate going forward. PREGO!
I refuse to believe these son-bitches can ******** this up but there is a real possibility. Messages here have my thinking there is mixed thoughts of success or failure, failure slightly in the lead.
DonnarummaVicarioCarnesecchiBastoniBuongiornoCalafioriManciniDimarcoSpinazzolaCambiasoPalestraPolitanoTonaliBarellaLocatelliCristantePisilliKeanReteguiPio EspositoScamaccaRaspadori✅22 Set (Barring NO surprises)👀5/7 Spots REMAIN🚨Full list NEXT week pic.twitter.com/nO3sa6sQta— AzzurriXtra🇮🇹 (@XtraAzzurri) March 13, 2026
🚨 Excl. - Italy National Team’s coach Rino #Gattuso has included #Atalanta’s left back Lorenzo #Bernasconi (born in 2003) among the players pre-called for the Playoff’s Matches. Gattuso will announce the players called up next week. 🇮🇹— Nicolò Schira (@NicoSchira) March 13, 2026
FIFA have approved several new rule changes ahead of the 2026 World Cup with the goal of reducing time wasting and improving decisions being made on the field. Substituted players now have to leave the pitch. If they take longer, the replacement must wait to enter. Throw-ins and goal kicks will now have a countdown. If the ball isn’t back in play in time, possession goes to the opponent. Players who receive treatment on the pitch must leave the field and wait after play restarts before returning. VAR will now also be allowed to review second yellow cards and corner decisions if there’s a clear mistake.
Capello "There is a connection between European flops and World Cup risks, and it starts with the value of foreign players. In my day, when I was playing, I always studied Luis Suarez, the best of them all, as well as Bulgarelli, who was a few years older than me. They were role models. They were masters. When I was a coach, we had the best in the world in Italy. Today, there are Modric, Rabiot and a few others. And we sell the really good ones, whereas once, at least until 2010, they all came here because we were a benchmark. Without that example, our players cannot improve. But that's not the only problem." "The absolute lack of Italian players in Serie A. Foreigners occupy those positions, even if they are modest ones. Do we really think they are all better than ours? Of course, if we were to fail in the third World Cup, I would have no doubt: it would mean that all the policies on our youth football have been wrong. "In 2006, we qualified for the World Cup in a group with Norway, and we were happy to have them there. Now I read in La Gazzetta that there, up to the age of thirteen, results are abolished, so the kids can play for fun. It's a cultural shift that is yielding results. Here, coaches want to win even with kids."
It’s pretty frustrating that it took till 2025 to realize this and institute any type of changes at the youth level with Prandelli. Look at Torino they play two young foreigners instead of Casadei and/or Prati in the midfield.
I don’t think this is true. Even if Serie A was poorer and teams were forced to work more with youth, Italian player development is what it is because the core philosophies would be the same. Likewise if Serie A were the richest league again tomorrow, it wouldn’t change anything about the current style of play. If Allegri had both Haaland and Yamal, AC Milan would still be playing corto muso. The difference being that now they would have a higher turnover on their chances because of higher quality individual skill. The money factor is important, but at the same time Italy had a hard time adjusting to the modern game. A fact that many in Italy are still in denial about (but things are finally changing). These two things created a negative feedback loop and this is where we are today. Cannavaro said something interesting a couple of months ago where he lamented the quality of youth coaches. He said that there is a big need for coaches that know specifically how to work with young players instead of having youth coaches that are just focused on the result. Now you have youth coaches who are having their u13 teams play catenaccio because the coach needs to win at all cost to advance his personal career.
Capello is right but he’s only scratching the surface. Yes there are too many foreigners and a lot of that has to do with agents. But on average, look at the type of player being recruited into Italy. Take the average signing of a team like Torino, Pisa, Udinese, Hellas etc. Big physical player with low technical skill. These are the demands of the coaches and the DS. Because this is the profile that better allows you to play your defensive tactics. Because if you can’t score, might as well not concede etc. Team like Pisa and Hellas are ********ing unwatchable. Udinese can easily double as a rugby team.