Why Italy got bad at soccer despite throwing massive money at it, while poorly compensated athletes in the pool and on the track won 23 European golds in two weeks.
Interesting article. Having watched both the World Cup and the European Athletics Championships (sorry to say I missed the swimming but there are not enough hours in the day to watch all the sport on UK TV in July and August so something has to give) the absence of Italy from the former and excellence of its athletes at the latter was very stark. Congratulations to them all!
However I’m not sure I can entirely agree with your conclusions. As your helpful graph shows, the Premiership is only just behind Serie A in its percentage of non native players but (not wishing to rub this in in any way) we came third in the World Cup. We also fund our top athletes (and this includes a vast variety of sports from athletics itself to archery and curling) from the National Lottery Fund which has paid enormous dividends though not enough to overcome the fantastic Italian athletes and swimmers who it would appear have achieved their dreams on a shoestring budget.
So whilst I see your argument I’m not sure that it entirely explains the phenomenon you have described.
Thank you, Ann! On the Premier League, I’d argue that it helps make my case. Yes, it has the same share of foreign players as Serie A, but England built rules to develop homegrown talent during the years in which it struggled on the global stage. Italy did not, and simply neglected its native pool. For example, England requires each team to include at least 8 homegrown players. So England kept the pipeline alive despite importing top players. Italy did not.
Thanks Antonio - to my shame I had forgotten (if I ever knew!) that the Premiership requires 8 homegrown players in each team. Obviously that is going to
help, as indeed we saw.
BTW do you have any theories about why Italians are excelling so much at tennis at the moment?
There is going to be a boom in the ostrich meat market. Nadia was coasting. Even dropped back to fourth so they’d assume she was out of it. Ostrich power left them standing still.
Interesting article. Having watched both the World Cup and the European Athletics Championships (sorry to say I missed the swimming but there are not enough hours in the day to watch all the sport on UK TV in July and August so something has to give) the absence of Italy from the former and excellence of its athletes at the latter was very stark. Congratulations to them all!
However I’m not sure I can entirely agree with your conclusions. As your helpful graph shows, the Premiership is only just behind Serie A in its percentage of non native players but (not wishing to rub this in in any way) we came third in the World Cup. We also fund our top athletes (and this includes a vast variety of sports from athletics itself to archery and curling) from the National Lottery Fund which has paid enormous dividends though not enough to overcome the fantastic Italian athletes and swimmers who it would appear have achieved their dreams on a shoestring budget.
So whilst I see your argument I’m not sure that it entirely explains the phenomenon you have described.
Thank you, Ann! On the Premier League, I’d argue that it helps make my case. Yes, it has the same share of foreign players as Serie A, but England built rules to develop homegrown talent during the years in which it struggled on the global stage. Italy did not, and simply neglected its native pool. For example, England requires each team to include at least 8 homegrown players. So England kept the pipeline alive despite importing top players. Italy did not.
Thanks Antonio - to my shame I had forgotten (if I ever knew!) that the Premiership requires 8 homegrown players in each team. Obviously that is going to
help, as indeed we saw.
BTW do you have any theories about why Italians are excelling so much at tennis at the moment?
There is going to be a boom in the ostrich meat market. Nadia was coasting. Even dropped back to fourth so they’d assume she was out of it. Ostrich power left them standing still.
Feed it to the Italian national team