Paul Nicolatocoach of Latvia and former selector of the Italian youth national teams, gave a long interview to Venetian Messengerreturning to the elimination of theItaly at the European Championship: “Did I expect such a failure? Certainly not, but it is not new that we have not been competitive for some time. The level has risen and, from direct experience in these competitions, you can expect to encounter great difficulties. The other countries have worked hard, reducing the gap with us”.
Yet at the youth level we are leaders. Why this disparity?
“Because the path followed by European players is different from our boys. Once they leave the youth leagues, at the age of 20, 21, 22 and 23, they are used much less in the first teams than their peers in other countries. Either we have a mentality according to which, before trusting a twenty-year-old, we take too long, and this happens not only in sports, or the national team, as I often say, is the result of a system, in which we are all responsible if we don’t reach the point we would like. The health of the movement unfortunately is this: if out of 60 million inhabitants we manage to put together only 30-40 players of a decent level to represent us in the big competitions, we probably need to ask ourselves a few questions”.
And how long will it take to bring Italy back to its best levels?
“Restructuring means starting from the bottom, and then gradually moving up. It won’t be easy, it’s not a process that will be completed in 2-3 years, that’s for sure.”