Fabregas: “Smartphones have ruined football: banned for Como and my daughter

Como is the true fairytale of European football. Having achieved qualification for the Champions League thanks to carefree play and a very young group, the Larians are the third team in Europe to have fielded more Under 23 players. Behind this miracle there is a philosophy that has its roots in a football of the past, made up of suburban pitches and thought up in a room with a Barcelona blanket and Guardiola posters: that of Cesc Fàbregas. The coach told all this in a long interview with Corriere della Serawhich began precisely with the memory of his past: “I played in front of the house by shooting against the wall. In the summer at my grandparents’ house all I had to do was hear the sound of the ball from the window to go down into the courtyard. It was a magnificent obsession. On Saturdays my grandmother wanted to prepare her delicacies for me, but I demanded the athlete’s menu: chicken and salad”. Among the most interesting aspects touched upon is his “crusade” against the digital world, guilty of having made today’s footballers worse: “Social media is an illusion, a world that doesn’t exist, often made up of robots and frustrated people. My daughter is 13 years old and is the only one in the class without a phone: I’m holding firm, no Instagram or Twitter until she’s 16, I want to protect her adolescence. In Como our rule is that at least at lunch you don’t use your cell phone.” This attention is also reflected inside the locker room and on the pitch: “I don’t understand when players, even my former teammates, use the phone during the warm-up, two minutes before the start of the match.”

present and future of the como

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Speaking about the present and the future, the coach vigorously defends the path of his Como team (fourth with 71 points) and criticizes the haste of Italian football, a system that wears out coaches after a few matches and no longer knows how to wait for young players: “In January we didn’t buy anyone. If you change ten players every six months it’s impossible to build. We remained what we were and went to the Champions League. Today football is faster, everyone has to control everything, plan everything. And this ends up giving a robotic character to the game. there is room for talent, creativity. One tries to make a complicated play and gets massacred. Everything is now more defensive than offensive.”

the example of arsenal and nico paz

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However, to explain his vision, Fàbregas cites the example of Arsenal: “Arteta finished eighth twice in the first three seasons, but the club held firm. This year they won the Premier League and reached the Champions League final.” On the jewel Nico Paz the coach prefers not to say too much, leaving the doors open: “He is very happy to be here with us. Let’s see what happens”. Finally, the Spaniard focuses on the only real regret of the season, that of not having Italians in the group: “I’m very sorry. When we were in Serie B, 95% of the team was made up of Italians and we won. Last year we had many of them too. This year we weren’t lucky enough to find Italian players who were functional to our way of being on the pitch. But I realize the problem. I feel part of Italian football and I want to lend a hand to the resumption of the movement in this country. Starting with strengthening the youth sector.”