Nicolato: “Italy-Macedonia tip of the iceberg, our football has deep problems”

“A minimum number of Italians in the squad? I don’t know if this hypothesis is feasible from a legal point of view. It is clear that we must find something. If it could be done, it could be one of the ways to go, if only in the youth sectors because that anyway what we decide to do today, if we decide to do it, we’ll see in a few years “. To speak, after the 1-1 in Montenegro of his Under 21 in the European qualifiers and the day after the disaster of the senior national team against Macedonia, is the Italian coach Paolo Nicolato. “We have to work to return in 4-5-6 years to have a certain competitiveness – he underlines – Structural things must be changed. It is true that there are few Italian players who play but it is also true that there is a level of young people that is enough. low, and it is low because there has been a large divestment in the youth sectors, and the companies are in difficulty and are struggling to provide managerial and even technical continuity. There are a series of components to be fixed “.

LONG-TERM

–

“I don’t know if anything will change in terms of the use of young Italian players, I wouldn’t swear – continued Nicolato – You don’t need to be a prophet to see what is happening. It’s not the problem of cutting off one or two heads. If we think about stopping at this thing here and solving the problem we are far away. It is a profound problem, there are things to be implemented that in my opinion must be done and that will bear fruit not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow but in a few years. It is a question of converging , to put all possible ideas and skills together to understand what we can do to grow because we have been at a standstill for quite a while “. In the senior national team “there is a trend that starts from 2010 where we qualified for the World Cup but we did not pass the group, in 2014 the same, in 2018 we lost the play-off, in 2022 we lost the play-off again. If this is the trend. next time we will not even win the group. But there is no fault of anyone, the national team is the tip of the iceberg that is almost totally submerged. We must go and find inside the iceberg if there is a way to solve things. A few more questions need to be asked. This is a time when no one can turn their head away, we must join forces and skills to understand what is under this tip. We cannot think of solving the problem starting from above. Above is the result of a work that we have been doing or not doing over the years “.

CONSOLIDATED TREND

–

For Nicolato, behind the recent negative Azzurri results “there is a trend that has lasted for twenty years. We need to understand if something can be done with the economic resources that exist now, which are not high, how to facilitate the paths. There are many aspects where to discuss to understand if there are the best solutions. In Italy we are very good at criticizing but then when there is the moment to propose and work we can do better “.