Former Watford manager Walter Mazzarri and ex-Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Walter Zenga explain why English clubs have the advantage over Italian at the moment.
Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and early elimination from the Champions League of Juventus, Inter and Milan inevitably raised questions about what is going wrong in the world of Calcio.
Sky Sport Italia therefore asked for advice from those who have worked in the Premier League and Championship as well as Serie A to give some insight.
Cagliari coach Mazzarri was the manager of Watford for the 2016-17 season.
“The English are good at marketing and they’ve got more revenue,” Mazzarri told Sky Sport Italia.
“I know this because I saw the budgets of even the smaller clubs in England, who have more or less the same revenue as Juventus, who in Italy are miles ahead of everyone else.
“When you have a lot of money, you can buy great players and offer them very big salaries to convince them to go there, something we cannot do in Italy at the moment, leaving sides who are seventh or eighth in Serie A.”
Zenga was on the Wolverhampton Wanderers bench in the Championship for just 17 matches in 2016 and he confessed when it came to fitness training, less is more.
“When you play every Tuesday and Saturday seven times in a row, then have a break for international duty, you ask yourself how do they run that hard, especially on the Tuesday?
“It’s because the game becomes the training session. The more you play, the more you have match fitness.”
On the other hand, in Italy the clubs all have double training sessions in a single day.
“Never! Never in England.”
Zenga also referenced the infrastructure of English football, which again is fuelled by the extra revenue that comes from the Premier League.
“I visited Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham, they had a small operating room inside the training centre if they need a quick and basic surgery. They do it on site.”
I could have told Sky Italia that. It doesn’t take experience or a genius to point out that the PL has money and infrastructure. Even clubs in the English Championship have better stadiums than many Seria A clubs. F++kin hell – is it not obvious what the problem is? Build the bloody stadiums – Roma, what is the problem there? It’s been over a decade. And now Milan are seemingly entering the same quagmire of procrastination from the local Comune.
Well said. There’s so much to fix before we can compete at the top level again and there’s no mystery about what is needed, we just need to get on and make the changes. The Milano and Roma stadium situation is a bureaucratic tragedy.
The comment about training regimes is interesting. I’ve been wondering about the numerous muscular injuries at Juventus for example.
Why do you have a picture of Zenga and Ranieri above this article?