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Anti-Italian Discrimination! Why So Few Italians In Serie A? (Weekly Q & A Pod)
1.7k Plays3 months ago
The Italian Football Podcast patron Petter sends in a question regarding the declining number of Italian players starting for Serie A teams in the last 24 years which Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese discuss, debate and analyze.
This is an extended clip from this weeks Q & A episode of The Italian Football Podcast available only to patrons on Patreon.com/TIFP
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Transcript
Lazio Fan's Favorite Season Review
00:00:04
Speaker
um next question pet lican says heinimankalo ah got a question for the I reviewed match day 1 of my favourite Serie A season since I started following Calcio, the 1999-2000 season as a Lazio supporter.
Italian Player Participation Trends
00:00:18
Speaker
Also this was the season before Euro 2000 where Italy more or less had a superstar in every position while the bench was also pretty stacked. I found that the average number of Italians starting for the respective clubs on match day 1 in 1999 was 7.77. Most of the clubs outside the 7 sisters at the time started between 9 and 11 Italian players.
00:00:38
Speaker
Then I then reviewed match day one of last season's Serie A and found that the average number of Italians starting for the respective club was four. Most of the relegation contenders started between one and four Italians, with the exceptions of Empoli and Frosinone, who started seven and six Italians respectively.
Youth Development and Foreign Preferences
00:00:57
Speaker
I remember that the numbers of Italians um ah starting for their respective Serie A clubs in the 2005-2006 preceding the World Cup triumph were fairly similar to the 1990-1000 season.
00:01:10
Speaker
I remember Carlo wrote some pieces on this for gold dot.com post Calcioppoli where he criticized the English Premier club premi league clubs for starting so few Englishmen while praising the Serie A sites for starting high number of Italians. Since then the number of Italians in the Serie A lineups dropped drastically. Do you have any idea what has happened over the last 25 years? Clearly Italy has players at a higher level playing for Italy youth size between age 17 and 21. Is the problem that the clubs don't think it Italian youngsters are good anymore? Is it a fad amongst Mercato managers to just sign foreigners instead of trusting Italians?
Role of Serie B in Player Development
00:01:41
Speaker
Or is it the case that most of it under 1721 just aren't good enough for the Serie A and thus the clubs trust foreign talent instead? If the latter is the case, there must be a broken bridge somewhere. In the 90s, so many players launched their careers in the Serie B before playing for a low to mid-table Serie A team before they were signed by big clubs. I remember interviews with players like Pippo and Vieri where they said that Serie B broke their bones and made them into men.
00:02:06
Speaker
Our Italian youth being given a chance in Sevier B these days. I apologize for the long question. Keep up the great work. It's the best Calcho pod, all the best, PETA. That is an unbelievable question. Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank
Impact of Modern Football on Italian Style
00:02:19
Speaker
you so much. And thank you so much for doing the research and getting those numbers because those are really, really good numbers. And they're numbers that I'll be honest, I'll probably use yeah um because that really, I wish I had those those ex exact numbers when, even like when we did the interview last week, was it last week or the week before? It's the under 19.
00:02:38
Speaker
ah under 17 map talent list is something that yeah weve we've spoken about a lot haven't we over the last one thing I was thinking of though is I think that maybe the kind of football is required to play at the highest level today Italy just don't produce those kinds of players um but back then they did um That's something I agree. i think that I think that's part of it. I do. I do think that's part of it because I've said this time and time again. One of the and one of the reasons why Italy has declined ah ah as a footballing force, even at international level, because as we said, Euro 2020 was an exception to the the the ah performances of the Italy national team since the 2006 World Cup.
00:03:23
Speaker
um One of the reasons why is football has changed into a game that is so reliant now on physical qualities, pressing, ah rather than in the past, where it was more about technical qualities, but more but but even more so using your brain, but also being able to defend and counter-attack, defence and counter-attack, which is what Italy's history has been mainly in football, defence and counter-attack. that type of football doesn't work anymore and defence as a whole is dead and that takes away really the biggest weapons of Italy. in the Italy's these's biggest weapons has always been we've been the best defensively and we've been the best thinkers, best tactically. We've always been you know better than everyone else at that and we can't make use of those
00:04:18
Speaker
advantages anymore because football has changed in a way that it doesn't allow that those advantages to be used. You know, um and i've and ah we've we've I've said so many times about the reasons about the way that the rules have changed. The offside rule has changed and the passive offside rule. um It's impossible to play an offside trap now, basically. ah You know, it's ah Italian teams are always the best at playing the offside trap. um you know, the the things you could get away with as a defender, ah the being football, being sneaky, but you know, all that kind of stuff.
Financial and Facility Challenges in Italian Football
00:04:52
Speaker
um The way that the game is so much faster nowadays, um it's, you know, that has that has been a disadvantage to Italy as well, because generally Italian, Italy doesn't breathe biical far physical, physical,
00:05:08
Speaker
intense players that that's just not in our DNA that just isn't other countries do have that we don't have that so we we we haven't been able to to to produce those kind of so I do think what you say in the image is true but that is it but it's one of many reasons yeah it's one of one of many reasons yeah um and you know another reason is is obviously the the the the the the bossman ruling but the the the the EU you know before there was a three foreigner rule and the three foreigner rule meant that it was actually a two foreigner rule in the in the 80s and in the late 80s it went to a three foreign rule which meant that every single club
00:05:45
Speaker
in Serie A or in Italian football were only allowed to three non Italians in their team. Then even into the 90s, when they relaxed that, they had ah ah they had a rule where of non EU players. You could only have so many non EU players in your team as well. And then that got relaxed as well. And then, you know, lots of teams found have also found ways around that with dodgy passports and and things like that. um So it's It's more difficult now for for Italians to to find space. And then, of course, there's you've got the financial situation as well. Back then, you know, Serie A was the richest league in the world. ah All the clubs were so rich. So when you're rich, doesn't mean you can just buy the best players. It means you can have the best coaches. It means you can have the best
Strategies for Italy's Football Revival
00:06:36
Speaker
facilities. Italy was so far ahead of the world yeah in terms of in terms of coaching, in terms of nutrition.
00:06:43
Speaker
um you know, like the Milan lab, for example, is is is is one example, and you know, of Milan. um You know, when when the Italian players used to move abroad, they we used they used to laugh at how, but I mean, I remember the Premier League in the mid 90s, they used to laugh at the Premier League about how backwards it was in terms of, in terms of its training and its preparation, its training facilities and its nutrition, how they would all go out on the piss and ah the night before games. And, and you know, they would eat fried breakfasts and and and fish and chips on the on the bus on the way back from games. and you know this this is This all happened in the mid 90s and Italy was so far advanced, you know whereas now we don't have the finances, so we don't have the facilities like the Premier League has so much money that every single club has state of the art facilities, it has all the best coaches, it has all the best
00:07:33
Speaker
sports science, the best training. And as a result, it produces so many great players and an English players as part of that. And as a result, that that goes forward to the national team as well. um You know, so is it's a it's a it's a combination of of of a number of of a number of things as well as well as bad planning, as well as, you know, not wanting to change, not wanting to adapt. Yes, football has changed. We need to adapt. you can't just You can't just continue to do what you were doing before. For a long time we refused to adapt our tactics, now we are. Now we don't have so many that play kind of the old style.
00:08:10
Speaker
counterattack, defend, deepen counterattack. Allegri is one of the exceptions to that. and But so you know in terms of just everything, we don't we still don't want to adapt. no We need new stadiums. Well, we don't everybody's they're resistant on the new stadiums. we We need to learn how to market the league better to bring in more money and bring better TV deals.
Broadcasting and Quality Issues in Serie A and B
00:08:30
Speaker
We don't want to do it. you know Do we even have a TV deal? I think we've just got just just got the TV deal has just been confirmed, hasn't it? for the new season, like in the United States. And the UK one, if I'm not mistaken, it's a partial one. It's like they show two, three games a week or something like that. Possibly, yeah. Which is insane. But everything is all part of the same problem. So there'll be other stuff as well. Those numbers speak for themselves. I mean, when I say we are the best listeners in the world, this is what I'm talking about.
00:09:04
Speaker
you know, we learn together and this is just, this is brilliant. Thank you so much for that, Peter. That was brilliant. And also, yeah, I've mentioned the youth side, youth teams. Yeah, there is a problem a clear problem with the pathway, which we've spoken about to death, so I don't want to go over and over. But Serie B is not an issue. they the The Italians in Serie B not getting a chance, they do get chances. I mean, Italian players get they get chances, but but the problem is that the quality of Serie B has dropped so much. And that's all part of the bigger issue with finances, with all these other things where we haven't we where we haven't moved with the times, that as a result, the level of Serie A obviously has dropped a lot, the level of Serie B and then of course, Serie B has dropped.
00:09:46
Speaker
So much so that when the it's ah even the Italians that do get chances to play in Syria be a plane at such a low level That they don't they aren't able to develop because they're not playing at high level whereas in the in England for example The championship is a really high level.
Listener Engagement and Contributions
00:09:59
Speaker
I would say it's probably about the sixth or seventh best championship in is In Europe right now, and it's the second it's the second league um you know that they they're playing at a really high level they let develops them to play it said yeah, and Yeah, it eases them in. Yeah, I know what you mean. You know, so it makes that it makes that gap or bridge like bridge yeah bridges it. yeah know um No, great, great question. pet Thank you so much. um Keep it coming. We really, really enjoy and thank you for taking the time out to do the research.