Against Northern Ireland, Italy struggled in front of goal for the umpteenth time in the World Cup Qualifiers. Is the Growth Decree to blame for the lack of attacking talent in Italy?
Italian teams were encouraged to take advantage of a fiscal boost on the transfer market when the Growth Decree arrived in 2019.
The new fiscal rules and tax discount made calcio a tax haven for foreign talent and had concrete effects on the club’s budget and balance sheets.
But the Serie A teams’ counting on taking advantage of the Growth Decree might have affected the domestic growth of talent, especially in attack.
In the aftermath of the success at EURO 2020 – when Italy overcame England at Wembley on penalties in the Final – the Azzurri have struggled to show the same determination during the three recent international breaks.
Italy have since finished third in the UEFA Nations League Finals and second in Group C of the European World Cup Qualifiers, needing two more wins in the play-offs to secure a place in Qatar 2022. But the centre-forward emergency didn’t start after the European Championship.
Mancini’s men were at times hailed by their free-flowing attacking style and Italy’s complete turnaround, squandering the Catenaccio label and threw the ‘door-bolt’ that defined the Azzurri out of the window.
Italy went flying through the qualifiers for the European Championship and scored for fun, but during the Finals it was a different story.
During the European Championship, the defenders were again praised for their contributions at both ends, with centre-backs celebrating tackles like goals and full-backs Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Leonardo Spinazzola storming down the flanks.
Up front, however, the Azzurri were bleak, as the offerings of Ciro Immobile and Andrea Belotti were heavily criticised by fans and, of course, the Italian media.
The lack of a clinical striker continued to be a problem in the World Cup Qualifiers too, where Italy eventually ended up second behind Switzerland in Group C and finishing the competition, applying a ‘false nine’ during the 0-0 draw against Northern Ireland in Belfast.
Lazio striker Ciro Immobile is struggling to replicate the numbers from club level, with only 15 goals in 54 caps with the Azzurri, while Torino captain Andrea Belotti has not grabbed the opportunities when they arise.
The 27-year-old, who has been linked with a move to one of the Serie A giants when his contract expires in June 2022, might hope the possible suitors are looking away from his numbers with the national team.
With 12 goals in 41 caps, the two main strikers at Italy are struggling to match some of the international stars in the league.
Young and promising strikers like Gianluca Scamacca, Moise Kean and Giacomo Raspadori are still being held back a bit at club level too, as the Italian teams are looking for international talent when searching for goals.
When clubs dive into the transfer market, they are often looking for a quick fix and most likely a way to score more goals.
The international talent in Serie A has been constant, but the Growth Decree has only strengthened the foreign stars’ position at the top Italian teams.
Immobile is in fact the only Italian starter among the top 10 teams of the current Serie A, while the league leaders are depending on foreign goods.
Some were already in the league, while others arrived after the top flight teams started taking advantage of the Growth Decree.
Napoli, who are currently joint Serie A leaders with Milan, have Victor Osimhen and Dries Mertens as their two main candidates for the centre-forward position, while the Rossoneri are looking to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Olivier Giroud or Ante Rebic for the role of lone striker in the 4-2-3-1 formation of Stefano Pioli.
Roma signed Tammy Abraham from Chelsea over the summer, as he replaced current Inter striker Edin Dzeko, who usually combines with either Lautaro Martinez or Alexis Sanchez at San Siro.
And if Abraham doesn’t start up front for the Giallorossi, you will find Eldor Shomurodov or Borja Mayoral in his place. Atalanta have been one of the highest scoring clubs in Europe of late and are currently relying on Colombian duo Duvan Zapata and Luis Muriel as their main strikers.
Fiorentina striker Dusan Vlahovic continues to excel since his breakthrough in 2020-21 and is being linked to giants Juventus, who have brought Kean back to the Allianz Stadium.
But the Italy international is behind Spain international Alvaro Morata in the pecking order, as even Bologna looked to Austria to find their spearhead this summer.
Marko Arnautovic’s arrival has helped the Rossoblu in the initial months of the season, while Giovanni Simeone has kickstarted his career at Hellas Verona after moving to the Bentegodi from Cagliari.
The transfer market is one of the biggest talking points in Italian football and the foreign players are often preferred over the significant costs of domestic operations and also due to the tax advantages of the Growth Decree currently in place.
When Italian players are down to 35% in your own league, where will players be discovered? They are buried in the lower leagues.
When team presidents would rather pluck an African and South American, feed and clothe him from childhood to adulthood instead of getting an Italian player, well, these are the results.
When the Government makes tax breaks for teams to get foriegn players, give out passports to every player whose last name ends on a vowel citing some Great ×10 grandparent they recently discovered, this is the result!
Think people are cherry picking for a convenient excuse on this looking for some “there there” where there really isn’t anything. Who was the Italian oshimen replaced? Or Tammy? Dzeko? Which next Italian zlatan did zlatan ditch at Milan? Or Juve who haven’t had an Italian target man since iaquinta I think? Now have kean.
This is the argument of growth decree yes? Taking Italian spots? Ok. Where?
Seems to me it could certainly be happening and yes maybe easier, but clearly this is not some new phenomena.
yes. but how do we get FI to get rid of the pop up videos?
And don’t kid yourself, there is an issue at Centrebacks as well.
Decades ago Italy would just get players from the big 3, with the odd player from Udinese, Torino, Samp, Roma sprinkled in.
Then when CT’s started capping players from the likes of Sassuolo, dopey journalist would come out and say “oh what a great open minded CT we have who is broadening his horizons looking for players elsewhere”.
Morons. NO! It’s because he has no choice because all the big teams don’t have Italians not because our CT’s are revolutionary.
Milan had NO players on the Euro 2020 squad. (Florenzi still hadn’t signed with them and Gigio had already signed with PSG). If that doesn’t scream that there is an issue then nothing will. All this considering Paolo Maldini, ex NT long time Captain is running things over there.
This is not a xenophobic issue ao spare me with accusations. Do you think if in the Ghanian League if today Hearts of Oak and the other top 4 teams reduced their Ghanian players to 35%, they could still be competitive?
Any foreign born players with an Italian passport being signed to play in Serie A via that loophole should only be allowed if they are willing to commit to the Nazionale, provided they have no caps of course. This would stop a lot of the South American players being signed by the middle of the road Serie A clubs in particular, and the ones that do play will be eligible for Italy.
On top of this i think the issue with attackers in particular is that we don’t have any ‘modern’ strikers. What i mean by this is the likes of Immobile and Belotti are old-fashioned no. 9’s with not much pace, the game has changed massively in the last 15 years, players need to be much more athletic and powerful now. Okoafor for Switzerland looks miles better than anything we have. Mancini should have given Lucca and Colombo a chance for these games, yes they play in Serie B but they can’t be no worse than what we have.
Immobile and Belotti is our answer to Portugal’s Hugo Almeida/Helder Postiga problem they had for years.
Yeah, OK Louch. Who is Tammy? The guy booed by Roma fans for his paltry 1 or 2 goals?
Where are they, you ask? Buried in ‘B’ and ‘C’. Just like Fabio Grosso was 5 years before the 2006 World Cup.
Years ago when Serie A started its decline I thought, great ! this will be the chance for Italian players to get a chance to play as the foreign players will all go to Spain and England. The NT will be good again.
But instead, what have we seen? Serie A just gets the crap foreign players. Joao Cancelo (great foreign player exchanged for Danilo, a big drop off). These are not the likes of Maradona, Batistuta, Rui Costa, Kaka, Ronaldo Fenomeno, Cafu, Javier Zanetti, Edgar Davids, Zidane, the Dutch at Milan, the Germans at Inter that made Serie A excellent and at one time the very best.
50% of the current crop of foreign players in Serie A have no business being there. Obviously players like Oshimen and that level is excluded.
These players are there and Italian Clubs still don’t win in Europe!
Portugal, God Bless them.
OK fine. They are in the Playoffs like us and their fans hate their team and Santos, especially. But they have their own league filled MOSTLY with Portuguese players, and so many players in the EPL (Wolves is practically all Portuguese), La Liga, Serie A with Rafael Leao.
Italy doesn’t have that. Direct fault of our team owners.
Guys, ask yourself a question. When 10 of the 20 Clubs in Serie A is owned by Americans, Bologna is at least owned by an Italian-Canadian (Saputo) who is genuinely a football man, that this isn’t a problem?
Then Venezia (one of the American teams) go out and bring in a few American players, are you telling me these players belong on merit?
I have kept saying that Immobile is not top draw. If you look at his career he was never able to settle and produce the goods in Germany or Spain. Long term this is a problem but how does it explain not being able to defeat little Bulgaria with all due respect and Northern Ireland. Neither are power house footballing nations and have little to no depth at all. If Johnny Evans can have a comfortable night something is very wrong.
Before national team is made up of players playing in serie A now they have players who sit on the bench in France playing as undisputed starters….to think that Raspadori who has never scored 10 career goals in the national team is very very appalling meanwhile Scamacca is being wasted in sassuolo,I hope they miss Qatar too
Immobile wasn’t there so nobody can blame him.
Guys, this is the team. The fish rots at the top and it starts with Directors of Football and Team Presidents.
When Roma can’t find an Italian player so they went to mighty Uzbekistan to pick one up just to sit on the bench, this has a reaction. Multiply that by a few hundred and we are seeing the Results.
Despite winning Euro 2020, Italian football is broken when Udinese fielded only one Italian in their last match — the GK.
And before any English lurkers are on here happy at this, England have even more foreigners. This will happen to England sooner than you think.
For years Italians have never really prospered abroad. Even now I can only name a handful of prominent Italian players in recent years in the top leagues in Europe outside Italy. The FIGC could do something about it but most likely won’t. When Bonucci and Chiellini retire or move on Juve could be fully non-Italian. Inter have a good crop of Italians but need to show more faith in the likes of Pinamonti rather than just farming him out on loan and investing in foreign players. Milan have some great Italian players but need to incorporate more into the team as opposed to being rotation options.
Sure it does have an effect but ultimately I think if they’re good enough, they will play.
Italy are just going through a dry period in case of producing top strikers.
Case in Point: just yesterday an article on this site about Milan bringing over a 16 YO Paraguayan.
Appropriate that it was announced the day of Italy not qualifying directly to the World Cup.
This is not me making this up Gli Azzurri were at their best 1978-1998 and they ran on those fumes to carry them over in 2006.
NOT a coincidence that the very best foreign players played there and there was room for Italian players.
The direct link is real.
The last 3 and maybe 4 WC’s Serie A is weak, has absolutely piss-poor foreign talent except for a few dozen and, will you look at that, it’s National Team struggles.
Plainly obvious.
This has nothing to do with Allegri having it in for Chiesa, or Berna or Insigne always trying his tir o gir or Gallo beong crap or Verratti playing too slow or Ciruzzo not being able to replicate his club form. These are indeed our best players. But when weak foreign players are in the league ahead of admittedly some weak Italiam players, this is the result. Italian players buried in B. I watched Ternana vs Cremonese not too long ago and there was good talemt out there.
Undefeated in Qualifiers, great! But half of the matches are Draws. This works in CONMEBOL and CONCACAF.
Europe is an animal to qualify from. Consider that in September, Spain lost their first WC Qualifier since 1993. If not for a gutsy win by Georgia over Sweden, that could have condemned them to a Playoff.
Imagine if in Costa Rica, Saprissa (main feeder club to their NT) only had 35% Costa Rican players. Or Club America in Mexico or Hearts of Oak in Ghana suddenly had only 35% native players?
Stands to reason that as feeder clubs to the National Team, they will struggle.
So why is it any different when Juve, Milan, Inter have 70% foreign players that Italy doesn’t struggle?
Italian boys have not stopped taking up calcio. If someone has stats to show me if enrollment is down, then by all means.
The hypothesis doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. France and Belgium both have ‘weak’ leagues and both are as good as or better than Italy. No Belgium player and few France players play in their own league. England have had their best ever decade in international football: a semi final and a final. And their league is owned, managed and played by non English people. Obviously they can afford the best in the world. The exposure to European managers, tactics and players has improved English football. This decree was designed to offset the advantage the PL had by enabling Serie A teams to offer higher wages. Unfortunately they still cannot compete with the PL. The whole of the Italian league needs a huge amount of significant investment and restructuring; infrastructure being the most obvious, in order for the situation to improve.
@dangerboy: Despite winning Euro 2020, Italian football is broken when Udinese fielded only one Italian in their last match — the GK…….then this problem started after Euro 2000 when Inter fielded the first ever non-italian starting lineup ! Let’s look at the team instead – there’s no Verratti to get the ball upfield – there was no idea to get the ball in attack and when they did there was no idea how to move the 2 buses parked in front of Ireland’s net ! Keep in Mind he have no aerial game because this team is short ! Now isn’t it the coach’s job to instruct the players ? I pray italy has a full squad in March otherwise it’s going to suck watching Italy play esecially if they play like this !
Really> 3 months ago no one was blaming the growth decree. Its pretty obvious where Italy’s issues are.
They haven’t produced a world class Centre Back of Forward for over 10 years.
In terms of the qualifiers its obvious that the amount of football has taken its toll in terms of fatigue and energy. To me its that simple and now doubt has entered the players minds.
The major issue this round was not playing form players, playing injured players and playing horribly out of form players. Players like Darmian, DiMarco and Frattesi, where were they?
Our fullbacks have been scared to go fwd, Mancini’s system foes not work if the fullbacks are not overlapping and making runs.
False 9 was a kop out. Play the best available striker as again the system does not work without a reference.
I think it’s far to simplistic to put the blame only on foreign players. I think its far more complex than that. Look at Russia, they have policy on limiting foreign players and it hasn’t worked out too well for them.
Yet look at the premiership and how many foreign players there are, yet England are producing a convey belt of young talent. I’ve been watching football since 70s and I’ve never see so many good English players coming through.
I fear this runs much deeper, infrastructure and investment in youth talent etc Feroli coments are spot on in this regard.
Martin Monk good starter article, you should do a real deep dive into this tragedy of the foreign vs homegrown pandemic in Italy and expose the government and team owners behind this $$$ chain and how all the rules were coerced in favoring outside and destroying our youth. This is the real crime and treason of this county, there are others but this is a start.
Another point which I never see mentioned and before everyone jumps on it I do not point it out as an accusation but just look at the skin tone of of our NT especially when lined up for kickoff against the other top clubs, France as an example. Are we excluding certain races from development?
its tough for young Italian players to get game time for bigger italian clubs to gain european football experiance
they need to leave their mamas and go abroad and play for other clubs for example-
Denmark/Holland/Belgium/Greece/Swizerland/ Austria/ Turkey Scotland ext. ext. ext
who year after year have clubs playing in europe and gain their experiance there and not take the easy option and drop down to seria B its all about ambition young italians footballers are lazy and want to stay at home,
and thats why we are not producing good strickers or developing in other position to pass on to the national side.
When you win major tournament, you need to replace that team top to bottom look at all countries that win World Cup or euros the next tournament with the same players never works .
Take Italy history
World 1970 final 1974 not even got out the group
1982 won 1986 terrible
2006 won 2010 never made it out of group stages
You have move the players on after a tournament
Italy should of start new project after euros
New players even under 21s .
Even simpler and not a shocking development…Italy only gets going for big games. Well barely make it in, barely get out of the group and still make a semi or a final…watch!
Just over 60 per cent of players in Serie A are now foreign, the highest in Europe’s top 5 leagues. There is the problem, no talent coming through. No real forwards to chose from, and soon centre backs will be a problem too.
Italy will have problems unless the federation looks into this.
Man, lots of hypocritical comments. You can’t talk about how great Serie A used to be and then list “Maradona, Batistuta, Rui Costa, Kaka, Ronaldo Fenomeno, Cafu, Javier Zanetti, Edgar Davids, Zidane, the Dutch at Milan, the Germans at Inter that made Serie A excellent and at one time the very best.” These are all foreign players, HELLO. Meanwhile, it’s as if Italy had not won the Euros less than fix months ago. Suddenly Italy is complete trash. Serie A is a total failure of a league, because 6 months or 60 years, it’s the same. England hasn’t won anything since 1966, but the premier league wasn’t full of foreigners until the early 00s, maybe even the late 00s. It’s not necessarily that clubs are focusing on foreign talent. So what if Italy’s CBs come from Sassuolo. If that’s where they play because Milan, Inter and Juve have foreign CBs then that’s where they play. More power to Sassuolo then. The problem is that lower table clubs and Serie B and C clubs have no funding to maintain good youth development (scouting, training, facilities, even simple player retention, as they sell as soon as talent is evident (Ex. A. Tonali)). The wealth does not trickle down. With the Super League that would get worse. No 19 year old is going to start for a top 3 club in any league unless they’re an absolute prodigy. So let them start for midtable clubs.
The real solution might be to cap foreign transfers, i.e. non-native players, like they used to back in the 90s. This still exists for non-EU players, but it may have to be for EU players too, i.e., any non-Italians. Sooo, now we get to the real elephant in the room: The EU…
Probably bring back Balotelli.
The bitter Truth is that the Serie-A Clubs are greedy and are in there just for quick Money, they earn due to the foreign Players, and have no Care and Concern for the Growth of the Italian National Team. This has been especially true for the last fifteen Years. For me the last Italian Club to win the UEFA Champions League was AC-Milan in 2007 that still had some Residue of some earlier great Italian Players (Inzaghi etc.). The strange Club that won in 2009-2010 was a Shame for Italy. It just happened to have had an Itlalian Player, Materrazzi on the Bench, just by Accident. inter-Milan has always been a Shameless NON-Italian Club for Serie-A. Barella just happens to be an Italian on the Team, only just by Accident. I pray Inter-Milan never wins UEFA Champions League again with all those Foreigners.
Reading the comments, i have to say i used to be pro quotas and limit the number of stranieri. However this is an Italian mentality issue and not a stranieri issue. Cristante, Locatelli and Pessina are all Milan youth products, but some bonkers management decided they weren’t good enough but they still made it, even if their treatment was appalling. So good players are going to make it regardless of quotas.
Where there is an issue for me is the mentality, in my 30 plus years following Italy i cant recall that many many players under 21 given a chance in the national team to cement a place?
Maldini, Nesta, De Sciglio, Balotelli its a slim list.
We just don’t have faith in our youngsters, it is our mentality that is the real issue.
Otherwise Baggio starts all Italy’s games in 1990 and Totti goes on the plane in 1998. Pirlo gets a ticket to Japan in 2002. He was bloody 23 when he got his debut!
Compare that to Spain or England. Pedri would be 32 before he got a cap if he were Italian.
Mancini needs to give Mario a ring every night from now until the playoffs.
He needs to tell him there is a ticket to Qatar for him if he raises his game.
He is the most gifted Italian striker still playing.
His Head is the problem.
On form and focussed on Football he gives us something no other Italian striker has at present.
He is our Prodigal son.
GmaN1980, actually very well said. I’ve also followed Italy/Serie A for 30 years I think you make a very good point. In fact I’d say that’s the difference between Mancini and Ventura, and missing WC2018 and winning Euro 2020 (current issues not withstanding). Mancini decided to trust younger players (although maybe not the youngest). The N. Ireland game called for Scamacca at half time. Yes, he’s not scoring tons, but Italy needed height and strength in the box against a team parking the bus. He either scores in the air, or brings balls down for Insigne and Chiesa to run onto for the shot.
ITALIAN ALL THE WAY: The problem is beyond the game it is a systemic problem with the foreign vs homegrown player. This is starting to build up in the form of small failures which amount to catastrophic collaps. When the foreign is 60% and homegrown is 40% there is a big problem. Articles have been written and the seria team Owners along with Italian government are responsible. These player need exposure to UCL, EL any competetion. WHen most seria A teams only field 3 or 4 ITalian player the fans should be realixing that this is an issue. We are all complicit in this and no one seems to care instead blame the national teams and player when they should be looking at their government and team owners who are all in this because of the financial upside vs nation building. I go one step further have not seen any journalist in Italy perform and indepth investigation on this matter they are all busy writing about nonsense and we all go along with it. Where are the Pino Maniaccis of Italy?
ITALIAN ALL THE WAY i used to have the view you have, but the fact is owners view foreigners as cheap and easy to sell on and then make a profit. Italian youth players are viewed as slower to develop and harder to sell on. If there were more Italians abroad and more successful sales of young Italian players than maybe there would be more of risk taken on italian youngsters.
I do find it surprising that Italian youth teams seem to be loaded with non Italian players. There should probably me more regulation at youth level but i don’t think quotas will work in SerieA, the players have to be good enough to reach European competitions and that has to be earned.
If you look at Italy’s performance in U21 tournaments the last 15 years we have not had the same success as the previous 15 years. Simplistically, that must mean the players coming through are not as good?
What is worse, is that from what i have seen at youth level we have some good teams but mentally thrown it away, thinking 2019 and even this year, where our ill discipline was shocking,
Its a worry that Chiellini seems to be last of that dying breed of Italian players that was always ten foot taller in an Italian shirt, i can’t see any in this squad.
The math is actually very simple- if teams don’t grow Italian talent how the heck are you going to have strikers? Imagine how our options include only one striker who starts in his team. Even Belotti has been benched. Keegan is a rarity to see him play And scamacca is mostly on the bench. For all of you who have actually played the game, you k ow you cannot get better sitting on the bench. It is sad when Italy threw all the rules out, we buy foreign talent. Immobile at least has experience and plays every Sunday. The situation is terrible for the future.
Imagine in 1970, a talent like Boninsegna wasn’t called up for the Wprld Cup until Anastasi got hurt. Then look at the typicalItalian team back then- few foreigners and mostly Italian players.
Bottom line is we can’t have it both ways. It takes years of training at club level since a young age to become a pro and then they need to play to improve.
Kean, Scamacca and Lucca have talent but they need to leave Italy to become starters and improve.
Dangerboy you ignored my question. Who did Tammy (Abraham) replace? Dzeko. Who did dzeko replace? Which Italian did oshimen replace. Seems to me no Italian was replaced because clubs have been doing this for years. And now we’re looking for excuses when frankly this growth decree has changed nothing from behaviours that have existed for decades. That’s the reality. Thx.
i don’t understand why belotti continues to be called up when he has only played with one mediocre club, and is out of form. destro, who is the second top scorer after immobile, should have at least been in the squad
No. It’s not the reason. Why do fans + people in general ALWAYS blame ONE thing, only to encounter new problem’s by going in the extreme, opposite direction? It’s like a never-ending carousel. Swing from one polar decree opposite to another! As if takin’ the growth decree away will fix all ill’s!!! The article even say’s, it’s had economic benefit’s? So why is it always one way or the other? What is wrong in including young Italian players in the growth decree ffs? Are we so programmed to think in such constricting ways, that we can’t choose both, encourage young, foreign AND Italian talent!?
Someone said it, Italy had amazing players in the 80’s/90’s, despite all the “stranieri.” There has always seemed to be a slight mentality issue though. It’s curious that many people think Italian Football is racist, when clubs have ALWAYS seemed to favour the foreigner’s over the homegrown player’s. Since I’ve been watching from 1990 anyway. Almost as if they have an inferiority complex or something? That’s why your Totti’s, Del Piero’s, Insigne’s + Baresi’s are so rare + worshipped. The last thing is us, the fan’s + media. Italy’s no9 has become a THING! A monster from the blue lagoon! If Kean, Ciro, Belotti or Scamacca played for Ireland, you’d say “That Bailey Peacock-Raspadori’s a good, little player.” But they’re substandard if they aren’t Christian Vieri. And even players like him got a poop-tonne of criticism at the time! Do you not think that getting hyper-critical about it doesn’t have an effect? It’s like the evil-eye is on the Italy no9 position. The pressure + expectation is immense. That’s why they sometimes struggle more than what you’d think. I know myself, doing a simple kick is easy, but as soon as 1,000 people are watching, it’s not as simple all of a sudden. That doesn’t go away just because you get paid a poop-tonne of €€’s! But you don’t always have to take something away, to encourage something a new approach, they can co-exist…far out man!
The reason for Italy failing the other night isn’t because they don’t have a top striker, it’s the way they played, pure and simple. We could have had Kane, Benzema, Lukaku any top striker and the result would have been the same. Too slow, nobody willing to take the defenders on to get to the byline for the pull back. The Northern Ireland defence had one of their easiest games of the campaign, they kept their shape because Italy were slow and passed back and sideways. Any top striker would have been anonymous had they been in the Italy team. Mancini’s tactics for this game was totally at odds with his tactics at the Euro’s. You need a top striker to convert the chances you create, if don’t create chances you might as well have your grandmother in the middle.
Louch,
All you’re doing is strengthening my position. Exactly, Tammy replaced yet another straniero. Been going for years, as you write, yet where are the European trophy’s for our clubs since stranieri are supposed to make them better?
But look at Roma‘s scudetto-winning season of 2001. 5 Strikers, 3 of which were Italians.
In 2007, they eliminated Real Madrid at the Bernabeu with 3 Romans in their starting 11 (Totti, DeRossi, Aquilani, who was a beast in that tie).
@I MISS MARCO BRANCA AT INTER
Oh I remember that very well. The great thing about that year was that despite being the first team to field an entire foreign 11 for the first time ever, they were brutal that year. It was amazing to see the irony. They live up to their name very well.
I remember the Reggina match when Davide Possanzini scored a goal at the Meazza. 0-1 Winner ! Some disgruntled Inter fan brought a moped into the stadium and hung it over the top tier to protest their lousiness.
Reggina were on a tour at the end of season in my neck of the woods, I ended up meeting Possanzini, thanking him, and shaking his hand. Snapped a pix with him too. Offered to buy him a drink to show him my gratitude but he declined.
Udinese are the new Inter.
on Nov 16, 2021 14:14 at 2:14 pm
@dangerboy: Despite winning Euro 2020, Italian football is broken when Udinese fielded only one Italian in their last match — the GK…….then this problem started after Euro 2000 when Inter fielded the first ever non-italian starting lineup ! Let’s look at the team instead – there’s no Verratti to get the ball upfield – there was no idea to get the ball in attack and when they did there was no idea how to move the 2 buses parked in front of Ireland’s net ! Keep in Mind he have no aerial game because this team is short ! Now isn’t it the coach’s job to instruct the players ? I pray italy has a full squad in March otherwise it’s going to suck watching Italy play esecially if they play like this !
Also, in and around the same time, Piacenza survived Relegation by have a full squad of Italian players.
Vero Rossonero,
Either you didn’t read properly or purposely are trying not to understand.
Exactly, Those are indeed foreign players. I wrote as much. They were the best ones around. Which is why I have no problems seeing them in Serie A. Quite the opposite, actually. Because they made the league the best. It’s the garbage stranieri that are in Serie A and B (of all places). Clearly not making the league better if you are on the bench playing only in Cup matches on weekdays. If Serie A clubs are not going to win European trophy’s, then these stranieri aren’t helping them. Might as well play Italians. Maybe being exposed to better Managers, facillities, being around better players will improve these players.
And yeah, less than 6 Months ago they did win the European Championships, very true. But this was accomplished in spite of the very real problems in Italian football.
RE: Sassuolo argument –> again. You’re not reading between the lines. Because Sassuolo, despite being a very likeable team and a nice story of a Provincial side taking some scalps and doing more than surviving, they are still not a big club, still don’t play in the Champions League where their players can get exposure to playing against other top clubs.
So while it’s nice that if you are a Sassuolo fan and your favorite player can get repped on the Italy team, it’s not like the 1994 World Cup for example, where half the Italy team were on the Milan team that won the European Cup the month prior. There are levels to this.
Yes, EU is a problem. Bosman Rule, etc.
“Man, lots of hypocritical comments. You can’t talk about how great Serie A used to be and then list “Maradona, Batistuta, Rui Costa, Kaka, Ronaldo Fenomeno, Cafu, Javier Zanetti, Edgar Davids, Zidane, the Dutch at Milan, the Germans at Inter that made Serie A excellent and at one time the very best.” These are all foreign players, HELLO. Meanwhile, it’s as if Italy had not won the Euros less than fix months ago. Suddenly Italy is complete trash. Serie A is a total failure of a league, because 6 months or 60 years, it’s the same. England hasn’t won anything since 1966, but the premier league wasn’t full of foreigners until the early 00s, maybe even the late 00s. It’s not necessarily that clubs are focusing on foreign talent. So what if Italy’s CBs come from Sassuolo. If that’s where they play because Milan, Inter and Juve have foreign CBs then that’s where they play. More power to Sassuolo then. The problem is that lower table clubs and Serie B and C clubs have no funding to maintain good youth development (scouting, training, facilities, even simple player retention, as they sell as soon as talent is evident (Ex. A. Tonali)). The wealth does not trickle down. With the Super League that would get worse. No 19 year old is going to start for a top 3 club in any league unless they’re an absolute prodigy. So let them start for midtable clubs.
The real solution might be to cap foreign transfers, i.e. non-native players, like they used to back in the 90s. This still exists for non-EU players, but it may have to be for EU players too, i.e., any non-Italians. Sooo, now we get to the real elephant in the room: The EU…
Jack on Nov 16, 2021 17:18 at 5:18 pm”
Having played as a foreigner in the Italian youth system, I can give a couple of good insights.
The Italian youth players aren’t hyped by the italian media (like in the UK or other media) thus decreasing their stocks and value.
In Italy there is an old mentality in all sectors meaning the old guy must play whether good or not. If you remove the foreigners the situation will still be that way.
I noticed also that the young talented players lacked hunger and ambition. No one ever dreamt about playing abroad to sharpen their skills. Instead of complaining, moving is always an option if things remain stale.
Also the federation has to start developing attacking players especially players who can dribble and run at defenders like Chiesa. The old attacking model doesn’t work anymore.
To cap this off, only few people know how difficult it is to become an Italian citizen. I got mine after 15yrs. This way you are counting out tons of talented players that could play for the national team. Instead of having many foreigners who won’t contribute to the country, it’s better to make it easier for those who would.
Cheers
It’s kinda like Italian TV then. Always the same old recycled faces on TV.
A Mexican friend of mine said the same thing about Liga MX. A journeyman’s league that it’s hard to push out the old guy.