Carlo Tavecchio says Antonio Conte 'knows Italy's youngsters', whilst admitting the Marcello Lippi problem persists.
The Italian Federation president was among the earliest defenders of the Coach, long before Euro 2016, and he was delighted to see the Azzurri win 2-0 over Belgium.
Carlo Tavecchio says Antonio Conte 'knows Italy's youngsters', whilst admitting the Marcello Lippi problem persists.
The Italian Federation president was among the earliest defenders of the Coach, long before Euro 2016, and he was delighted to see the Azzurri win 2-0 over Belgium.
“The game was well prepared, at a moment when very few people believed in our team,” said Tavecchio, as reported by SportMediaset. “There was a lot of perplexity. He fielded a formation that at first was rather misunderstood, but which gave us the best possible results.
“Conte showed how well he understands young players, and that he knows how to get them to play together. We're all already on the pitch to face Sweden.
“If we win, then we've got full points [from the first two matches] and we're guaranteed to make it to the next round.”
Though the spotlight is on the European tournament, the FIGC is currently wrangling with an internal issue. The candidate for the new position of technical director is former Coach Marcello Lippi, but a conflict of interest may keep him out as his son Davide is a football agent.
“His son is a football agent, but that's not our problem. The matter was delegated to the federal jurists, who will tell us whether we can overcome this obstacle in the norms.
“When we decided to set up the technical department, we immediately thought of a competent technician, a man of great level who would be worthy of that task.
“We chose Lippi. To be honest many of our problems emerged later, so I decided to defer the question to the magistrates.
“An alternative to Lippi? I'm used to resolving problems one at a time. What's certain is that I want to create a competent technical department, in which there's something like a quarry with our coaches working alongside our players aged 15 and above.”