The Italian national team struggles because there are too many foreign players in Serie A. Are we so sure about that? Actually, for the Nazionale – and Italian football in general – the problems begin at home. We could evoke them in two words, two qualities that Italian coaches and managers dramatically lack: courage and concept of football as a system.

The failure in the 2010 South African World Cup should have been a wake-up call for Italy, but the good European Championship in 2012 dampened any reformatory zeal. In the post match press-conference of Italy-Uruguay, the Italian coach Cesare Prandelli resigned and said that “this team veiled Italian football's deficiencies”. He was right. In Brazil, the dust under the carpet came out again and flew into the eyes of the world.

European championships and World Cups are a chance to compete against the best around, in terms of national football movements. If these tournaments end with a fiasco, one has to get the message, seize the moment and invert the course as soon as possible. Belgium and Germany also had their Waterloo, but they understood and changed. Was it a change for the better or not? Results in Brazil 2014 gave a resounding answer: yes. Belgium's squad had an average age of 26 years and 15 days and they reached a respectacle quarter final. But, above all, the Red Devils showed an amazing wealth of young talents and the majority of the best European clubs are fighting for signing them.

Germany was a bit “older” (26 years and 114 days) and – as all of you know – they won the 2014 World Cup with a goal by Götze (22) from an assist by Schürrle (23). The man of the match wasn't even born when Lothar Matthäus raised the last (now penultimate) World Cup for Germany in 1990 in Rome. We all consider Thomas Müller as a veteran – especially because he already was World Cup golden boot in 2010 – but he's only 24 and he already scraped together 56 caps for Germany. At his same age, Italian footballers Matteo Darmian and Ciro Immobile have amassed 8 caps with the Azzurri senior team.

Both Belgium and Germany have been resurrected after having reached their lowest points: Belgium's U-turn started in 1998, when they didn't survive the Group Stage at France '98. But the revolution – which we'll explain later– was not painless and did not bear fruits immediately. The Red Devils didn't qualify for Germany 2006 nor for South Africa 2010, not to mention the last three European championships. Germany hit rock bottom in Euro 2000, when an embarassing team went home after the Group stage scoring only one goal and conceding five. That team had to recall Lothar Matthäus – who was 39 – to prop up a scarce squad.

Talking about “reform” would be reductive for Belgium and Germany. It was more of a long and difficult integration process between football federation and clubs, managers and coaches, federal coaches and club coaches.

Foreigners, a non-problem. Less foreign players, more Italian footballers. That would be the magic formula to rejuvenate Italian football. A protectionist – and a vintage – slogan, but a meaningless one, that facts and data prove wrong.

Let's return on topic: the comparison with Belgian and German football. Taking into consideration the first division of the respective countries, in the 2013-2014 season Serie A had the lowest percentage of foreign players (44,8%), less than Bundesliga (46%) and Jupiler League (48,3%). The data, from Transfermarkt, only takes into consideration registered players, irrespective of whether they played or not.

After the 2010 World Cup failure, when Italy was thrusted out after three games, the Italian football federation (FIGC) toughened up the rules about non-EU players. However, the situation did not change: Serie A clubs cannot have more than three in their squads. If a club reaches the limit, it has to sell two abroad in order to sign another two from abroad (there's no limit for non-EU players' signings from another Italian club). Bundesliga and Belgian Jupiler League didn't draw the line at non-EU footballers, it doesn't seem that foreign players are an obstacle for clubs to nurture local talents.

It wasn't the first time that the FIGC took important decisions based on the emotions of a moment rather than on a rational analysis of the system. In 1966 Italy was knocked out of the World Cup – for the second time in a row – at the Group stage. As a consequence, the FIGC closed the doors to any non Italian player. Do you really want to know how many foreign players there were in Serie A at the end of the 1965-1966 season? 8,8%. Not exactly a barbarian invasion. As a result, Italian league had a 14-year long depression which ended in 1980 – when the borders were re-opened. Two years later, the Azzurri won their third World Cup in Spain.

Drawing the line at foreigners is quite anachronistic per se. But if clubs don't play their part, it's totally useless. According to a 2014 CIES demographic study, among the leagues with the most players nurtured in their club, Italy is last out of 31 with a meager 8,4%. Belgium has 15,5%, Germany 16,6%.



What Belgium did. While the Italian federation takes irrational decisions without agreeing them with anyone, in Belgium the institutions decided to collaborate. The current youth system is the result of a partnership between the national government, the football federation, football clubs and schools. It's a pyramid system: at the base there are regional selections (from Under 12 to U17). At this level, kids are monitored by 200 scouts all around the country. At the following level there are the TopSport Schools: 8 centres scattered through Belgium that allow to kids from 14 to 18 years to train with coaches who work for the federation. Youngsters are selected from mens clubs' youth teams or from lower leagues. In the TopSport Schools, kids are coached individually, from a technical and tactical point of view.

It's important to highlight how these schools don't replace the normal training the kids have with their respective clubs. It's an additional contribution, in an environment where a boy/girl can improve as a footballer, without any stress on results, while he's absorbing the Belgian football philosophy. Growing talents learn to play in a 4-3-3 system, because Belgium decided to adopt a precise playing style, with high pressing and zonal defence as main credos. The result: once they arrive in the national team (which plays in the same way), the settling-in period is minimal. In 2012-2013, TopSport Schools gave 250 extra training hours to 337 young talents. Courtois, Mertens, De Bruyne, Dembélé, Defour, Witsel and Chadli frequented those “football universities”. At the top of the pyramid there are 9 national youth teams.

That system is flanked by permanent “public relations” work between Belgian federation and professional clubs, with a series of annual meetings to plan the work and smooth any disagreements that may arise. Federal coaches also have to study: they attend a formation school before setting foot on a training pitch.

Finally, there are other elements that go beyond any plan. Second generation Belgians give a huge contribution to the development of the entire football movement in terms of physical and technical skills. Adnan Januzaj, Mousa Dembélé, Romelu Lukaku, Nacer Chadli, Divock Origi, Marouane Fellaini, Vincent Kompany, Anthony Vanden Borre and Axel Witsel: they all have a successful integration story behind them. And we must add that Belgium has one sixth of the Italian population: this means that the reservoir of potential talent is immensely smaller.

What Germany did. We are talking about a country that's ten times bigger than Belgium and eight times more populated, so the German system is inevitably more complex. But the philosophy is the same: clubs and federation (DFB) work together, talents have to be searched everywhere in the country, everyone has to have an opportunity and the playing style is the same at every level. At the bottom of the German pyramid there are 390 training-camps, spread through the territory. They engage 14,000 kids who are not necessarily registered in a club. Everyone can be spotted by a federal coach. The idea is: if the best talent of his generation was born in the middle of nowhere, a German scout will find him. Not everyone becomes Götze or Müller, but he'll still have trained and taught to live with other kids of different ages in a friendly environment. That's the base of tomorrow's Nationalmannschaft and, according to DFB guidelines, pressure for results is basically absent at this level.

Training-camps are constantly followed. Germany created new professional figures, a hybrid between coach and manager: these 29 coordinators have to tour the 390 camps to arrange and unify training methods and keep in contact with local clubs.

At a higher point of the pyramid there are elite schools. There are 28 all around Germany and the kids range from 11 to 20 years old. Elite schools' role is very similar to Belgian TopSport schools: they give additional training to players who already play for a club. You can find a young Bayern Munich prodigy playing together with a boy from an almost unheard-of local club. Programmes are standardised and if one would like to open a new elite school, it should comply to 18 national criterias. Among the standards is the tactical one: federal football schools in Germany teach the youngsters to play in a 4-3-1-2. Yes, the same deployed by Joachim Löw, with few adaptations.

Let's make another step forward: here we have the 45 centres of excellence. The best German talents reach this level. We're talking about footballers whose chances to play in the most important clubs in Europe are significantly high. In these centres, boys learn to live and play as professionals (and, this time, they have to do it also under pressure), they are educated to think like a team rather than individually. Basically, the next Nationalmannschaft's leaders come from there.

In Germany, as in Belgium, the federation guides the whole football system. The federation sets the standard and dictates rules to the club. A perfect example of how it works: clubs cannot register to first and second division leagues if they don't have a youth sector, licensed by the DFB. Quality standards are monitored every three years by federal inspectors. Clubs have to answer to an 800-point questionnaire. By the way, it seems that German clubs rely on their youth system, as Bundesliga clubs spend – every year – around 100 € million for nurturing their future prodigies.

German system has another peculiarity, which it shares with Spain: B teams. While in Belgium and Italy there's a youth league where the U21 clubs' selections match one against the other, in Germany these teams play in professional leagues against normal clubs. As if Roma and Juventus youth teams would play in Serie B or Lega Pro. The benefits from having B teams are many: youngsters can accumulate playing time in leagues where competitiveness is high, results count, playing against older and shrewd footballers.

A lack of courage. The two systems we described in this article are light years away from Italy. Nevertheless, Italy has many good coaches (Ancelotti, Mancini, Capello and Spalletti are among the best paid around, which means they don't work in Italy), a technical centre that's envied abroad (Coverciano), with one of the best formation schools for coaches around and – above all – many young and talented players. No one won as many European Championships (five) as the Italian U21 team. The last title came in 2004, while in 2013 the Azzurrini lost the final against Spain.

So, what's the problem? The Italian federation is not powerful enough to drive the change (and, in any case, there's a dramatic lack of ideas). As a consequence, no one intervenes if Italian clubs give very few chances to their best talents. “Italian coaches have a low risk inclination, so they prefer not to rely on youngsters. But if you don't give minutes to a young footballer, if you don't allow them to make mistakes, you'll never let them grow”, Italian journalist Xavier Jacobelli said to SerieAddicted.

The editor in chief of the website Calciomercato.com continues: “Just look at what happened with Marco Verratti. He played a wonderful season in Serie B with Pescara, but Italian top clubs didn't take him because they thought he was too expensive. Now he's playing at PSG and is one of the best midfielders around. And what about Ciro Immobile, Serie A's last top goalscorer? Juventus and Torino undersold him to Borussia Dortmund” (Klopp's side purchased him for €18,5m).

Many Italian clubs have a top-class youth system: Roma, Lazio, Inter, Atalanta, Empoli, Sampdoria are the main ones. “The problem is when players from those 'primavera' teams exceed the age limit to play in the youth squads – adds Jacobelli – B sides would help a lot, avoiding them to lose themselves in a twist of loans before being sold, because their mother team started seeing them as negotiating elements. There are no magic formulas. Sometimes, imitating those who did it better than you is enough”.

 

BELGIUM	GERMANY	ITALY
Integration between federation, clubs and schools for talent identification, training and education	Integration between federation and clubs  for talent identification, training and education	No integration
Youth selections adopt the same system as the senior team (4-3-3)	Youth selections adopt the same system as the senior team (4-3-3-1)	No system  integration
Small-sided games up to U11	Small-sided games up to U14 (with a mix between 9v9 and 11v11 for U13 and U14)	Small-sided games up to U11
No B teams	B teams. Youth selections play in professional lower leagues	No B teams
6 Belgium-grown players between pitch and bench per game	No quota	No quota

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