Summer mercato 2012

[Gio-mania]

I really envy Barcelona's youth academy. A problem we may have in implementing something similar, however, is that Barça really do have a certain brand of football they play. In the last 20 years or so we've seen a team who plays possession and total-ish football, progressing from Cruyff's side to Pep's, which is arguably one of the finer sides in footballing history. The Barça brand is strong, their goal and mentality was clear throughout. In reference to ACMILAN1983's post, while in Italy we streamline a generic type of physical player in the Catalan cantera they are producing technical and creative, but nonetheless the players that pop out all seem to be of the same type.

The problem at Milan is that we seemingly lack a goal like Barça, apart from winning of course. Our style of play varies from coach to coach. Under Carletto we saw a rather classical Italian side, keen on possession, with a catenccio-like defense and a mean counter-attack. Then along came Leonardo who tried to build a Brazil '82 side, followed by Allegri which is unlike his predecessors. A problem of course being that the players have been the same throughout, but it shows the management don't have a long term plan as did/do Barça.

Italian football in general though could benefit from long-term planning. It brings me great sorrow as an Italian to see the current defenders represent the national team. If once we had the best defense in the world we now have a stack of generic mediocre players. The same goes for other positions as well, but the stark contrast is especially visible in this case.