England has been facing more and more criticism over the fact that the Premier League is so overpopulated with foreign players that young English players don’t have the opportunity to grow adequately. Italy seems to be under fire for the same sort of situation, with such a lack of talented Italian football players.
The Azzuri have failed to impress lately. Their qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup finals was hardly impressive, relying on a last gasp equaliser in Ireland to put them into the finals after a series of unimpressive drawn games. At the finals, the Italians also failed to impress, especially in their first two games against Paraguay and New Zealand.
For all their renowned defensive abilities, the Italians looked lacking in imagination in attack. They missed the guile of Andrea Pirlo, they missed the threat of a player of the calibre of Francesco Totti and an in form Luca Toni and what is more, they may well struggle to find adequate long term replacements for all these players to put in the official soccer apparel. Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan were the Serie A and Coppa Italia winners of 2010 before they went on to lift the European Champions League with a 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich in Madrid. Disappointingly, Inter failed to contribute any players to the World Cup Squad for Italy. For the majority of the season, Inter’s first team rarely held an Italian player. Only youngsters Davide Santon and Mario Balotelli made a lasting contribution and they were used mainly from the substitutes bench and neither made the final squad for the summer’s showpiece event in South Africa.
Looking through Serie A big teams is enough to confirm this worrying trend. AC Milan can be commended for a higher amount of Italians in their first team, but this victory is diminished by the fact that most of these people are nearing or beyond thirty. The picture is a little brighter at Juventus, but the team is only saved by Chiellni, Giovinco and De Ceglie rising up to support the phenomenal Marchisio in the midfield. Still, a majority of Juventus’s Italian nationals exceed the age of thirty, especially those that could be considered as first team material.
More and more, the majority of the players on the Italian national team are not coming out of the top four to five teams from Serie A, but instead from the teams which sit just outside of this elite crew. The 2010 World Cup Italian squad has a total of six players from Juventus, with two coming from Milan, and one from Roma. However, the team also has 3 players from Napoli, another 2 from Sampadoria, 2 from Genoa, two from Fiorentina, and one apiece from Udinese, Cagliari, Bari, and Al Ahli of the UAE.
The tendency against national players is one that is unlikely to stop soon, which may become a torment to the Italian FA as well as future Azzuri team managers. Many of these Italian players are now not playing in the Champions League each season and that will have an impact on their abilities to perform against the very best.
Italy does have hope for the future, with players like Domenico Criscito, Salvatore Bocchetti, Giampaolo Pazzini, and Leonardo Bonucci as up and coming players. Sadly, though, these players are likely to gain their football education not on the pitches of Old Trafford, Allianz Arena, Bernebeu and Nou Camp but on those of Palermo, Bari, Cagliari, and Lazio.
It is a worrying trend for the Italian national side and one that needs to be addressed. Without a strong national identity, can a player really defend a nation with the vim and vigor of patriotism?
