Who’s interested in the national team?

At least this time, we’ve got some foreign players who can spark the fans’ imagination, rather than just draining our clubs’ coffers. Never mind that Serie A has become a stop-off point rather than a destination. Europe’s big clubs are sending their young gems to Italy to see if they can become champions. Nico Paz and his brothers. That’s how we could put it. The real problem is something else: who cares about our national team? Not even five months after our third consecutive World Cup elimination, the Azzurri have already slipped off the radar, with everyone waiting to pounce on Mancini if things don’t go well in the Nations League on 25 September against Belgium and four days later against Turkey. Have a look at this summer’s transfer deals and you’ll see that, once again, Italian players are conspicuously absent.

Vicario has returned to Italy, Frattesi has changed teams, but apart from that, very little has happened. After every crisis, people say we need to focus on young Italians, that we need to give them a chance to play, that there’s no point in signing worthless foreign players, but in the end the result is always the same and Mancini will have to go hunting for players worthy of a call-up. Perhaps he’d be better off looking at a few foreign leagues, rather than limiting himself to Donnarumma, Tonali, Calafiori and Palestra. After all, he’s always done so. Reports from Spain highlight Lorenzo Amatucci, who joined Rayo Vallecano from Fiorentina’s youth academy. Naturally, he’s an Under-21 international who has gone abroad to find playing time. Let’s be honest about it: our Serie A has little or no bearing on the national team. And it’s certainly not the lack of training camps that explains this. On the other hand, the majority of the ownership stakes in the 20 Serie A clubs are foreign. Why should the Oaktree fund or Jerry Cardinale care about the Azzurri shirt? In the starting line-ups of the 20 Serie A teams, there are 60 Italians – that is to say, less than 30 per cent. Paolo Condò counted them whilst sifting through the line-ups published by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The desire for a national team has already vanished from the minds of those in charge. In the end, it’ll all be Malagò’s fault anyway. We’re in year zero of his tenure, which so far has garnered more criticism than praise, but we must realise that Diana Bianchedi’s barbs certainly won’t be enough to shake up our shambolic state of affairs and restore a competitive national team – one capable at least of taking part, if not of winning. And that is precisely why the ‘Malagò plan’ is on its way; it will be presented before the 100-day deadline and will attempt to shake up Italian football. Unless the clubs’ mindset changes, along with the work in the youth sectors and the protection of our talents, we will get nowhere. Malagò wants to give it a go. All we can do is wait. In the meantime, thankfully, we’ve got other ‘Azzurri’ to think about, starting with Velasco’s girls, who haven’t let us down so far.